The Terror In His Eyes
by Xmyheart.hope2die
Summary: The Doctor's been missing for God knows how long, held prisoner by a terrifying creature that has even our hero trembling. Captain Jack finds him, but this broken and bloodied man is far from being saved. T for torture and lots and lots of Doctor Whump!
1. Chapter 1

_A/N Hello, hello. First of all, I'd like to apologize for this long slightly rambly authors note. Just have a few things I want to say though. Thanks for finding your way to this story. The Terror In His Eyes takes place whenever you would like after Donna's departure in the Whoniverse and right before Children of Earth in the Torchwood world (However, you definitely do_**_not_**_have to have seen all of Torchwood to follow the story. All you need to know is that Jack Harkness is awesome and has two partners, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones.) Also, this story is pretty much my excuse to write a s*** load of Doctor Whump, so I wouldn't suggest it to those who aren't fans of blood and angst. Cheers!_

_**There are elements of this story borrowed and adapted from Jellyhair's original Sherlock fanfiction __"Broken Wings and Cigarettes"__. These elements have been borrowed with permission and approval. I highly recommend Jellyhair's story as well if this genre is something that interests you!**_

The Terror In His Eyes: Chapter One

The man slammed his head against the wall once more for good measure. Blood was already trickling down the dark, cold stones from the assault, and his victim seemed to grow less and less conscious with each second. "Look at me." The man growled dangerously as he pulled his victim's face within inches of his own.

He tried to open his eyes, desperate to obey, but the world spun in a dizzying array of dark and blue colors, the ceiling becoming the floor and the man holding him up multiplying into three identically terrifying forms. It was enough to bring him close to vomiting. He screwed his eyes shut again, trying to ride out the wave of nausea and pain. "I'm s-s-sorry." He whimpered in a barely audible whisper.

"Sorry isn't _good enough._" The man accentuated his point by drive his fist into his prisoner's stomach. He doubled over as all the air in his lungs was forcibly removed, but the chain around his neck attaching him to the wall caught him as he struggled, temporarily choking him as he tried to find his feet again.

The man took advantage of his position and brought his knee up, hard, to meet his victim's nose. The prisoner's head flew backwards upon contact and slammed, once again, into the wall behind him. Blood, which was already slicked through his messy, matted brown hair, began to run anew, and the force of the blow was too much for him. The world was darkening around him. He fell limply into the oppressive hold of his captor, unable to support himself any further.

"What did you _DO_?" The man yelled cruelly, but he was beyond being able to answer. He attempted to peel open his eyes one last time, but darkness rushed in to greet him instead until he was no longer aware of the pain that had just been inflicted upon him yet again.

Jack Harkness could hear the shouting, could hear something being slammed against something else repeatedly. He prayed to God it wasn't what he thought it was, but he tightened the grip on his gun nonetheless. Gwen looked at him for instruction, gun drawn as well. Jack held up three fingers and she nodded in understanding.

They stood in front of the cellar door, poised to attack. The typical wooden door was covered in a thick plate of metal with three different strong locks attached to the outside, making it look almost impossible to break into. Or out of.

Luckily for them, each lock lay open. The bastard was still down there. They heard another _thud_ through the slightly open hatch and Jack winced, guessing at what was making that sound and not liking it one bit. With each steadying breath he dropped a finger, readying to barge in, when suddenly they heard someone shout angrily "What did you _DO_?"

* * *

><p>The two Torchwood agents glanced at each other quickly before Gwen lunged for the cellar door's handles and Jack, gun raised and ready, dove through the opening, leaping down the small flight of stairs and landing, catlike, on the floor of the dark cellar. Gwen followed hot on his heels.<p>

The sight before them was enough to make even Jack feel slightly sick. A man stood with his back to them, salt-and-pepper hair disheveled and stature surprisingly normal looking. But his hands were slick with blood and holding up, by the neck, the limp form of –

"Let him go!" Jack ordered in the most authoritative voice he could muster. It echoed dangerously off the walls of the suddenly silent cellar and seemed to physically slam into the man.

There was a second of stillness as the man froze before releasing the dead weight from his grasp, which fell sadly to the ground in a crumpled heap. Then, slowly, the man began to turn around to meet the intruders. Jack held the gun steady, pointed directly at the man's turning head, the anger he felt inside him egging him to just pull the trigger.

And then he saw the man's eyes. They were blue. A bright electric blue with no whites or pupils visible. Jack faintly heard Gwen gasp next to him, but he hardly even noticed anyone else in the room besides the blue eyed man.

Jack was absolutely terrified. A terror that was all-encompassing and ineffable, that rooted him to the spot, froze him in time and space, ripped the air from his lungs and both wiped his thoughts blank and set them whirling in frantic, panicked circles. The gun began to shake in his hand as the man took a step towards him, and the need to flee, run away with his tail tucked between his legs, fought against his frozen limbs. He had never been this scared. In all the centuries he'd lived in and been in, he had never felt horror at this level.

Three shots rang out suddenly, breaking the painful silence that had enveloped the room. The man before him jerked and twitched erratically before falling to the floor with a surprisingly loud _thud_, red blood blossoming from three spots on his chest.

Jack stumbled backwards as if he'd just been hit by a train. Broken from his terrified trance, he turned to his left to see Gwen holding a smoking gun shakily in her hands, tears streaking down her cheeks and eyes expanded to petrified disks. She turned to him, gun lowering and body shaking all over. "What _was_ that, Jack?" She asked in a voice that sounded close to breaking.

"You felt it, too?"

"That was – I –" She ended up simply nodding, unable to put it into words and too afraid still to try. Jack wanted to comfort her – and in fact wanted some comfort himself – but quickly remembered exactly why there were there.

"Doctor!" He called as he remembered the crumpled heap on the floor against the wall. He ran the short span of the basement to the tall, thin, unconscious figure, giving the dead body now filled with three pieces of lead a very wide birth. He crouched down next to the chained and lifeless figure, rolling it over so he could see him better.

The Doctor's face was a mess of bruises, blood, and streaks of tears. His mop of usually brown hair was so caked with blood it was almost the ginger he'd always craved. The back of his head was the worst, red fluid still oozing lazily from the wound and staining Jack's hand as he tried to hold his friend up.

"Come on, Doc, wake up for me, please?" Jack begged as he searched the Doctor's wrist for a pulse. It was there, weak and erratic, but too slow for a Time Lord; he only had one heart beating. He stared at the Doctor's face, wondering what he should do. Should he try starting the second heart? Or just focus on getting him out?

"Jack!"

The ex-time agent turned his head to see Gwen basked in a strange blue light that had suddenly encased the cellar, rising from the dead body in the middle of the room, the same color the man's eyes had been just moments before. Jack felt the same surge of terror course through him, though not as strong as the fear of the Doctor dying in his arms overpowering it.

Gwen, however, had much of the same response as the first time, and opened fire into the mass of blue light congregating over the body. One, two, three shots, all of which went straight through the light and pounded into the opposite wall. Then the blue light burst upwards, disappearing into the ceiling and leaving the cellar in a surprising darkness.

Gwen stood panting in the middle of the room, spinning on the spot with her gun still drawn, looking for whatever it was. "What the _hell_?" She practically screamed, voice still etched with unexplainable fear.

But Jack's attention was instantly drawn back to the limp form in his arms as it suddenly became not limp anymore. The Doctor woke with a great gasp for air before thrashing out of Jack's grasp and pressing himself against wall desperately, fresh tears gushing down his face as he began to mumble something into his knees. Jack had to strain himself to hear it properly, and his single heart seemed to shatter into a million pieces when he finally heard what the Doctor was saying.

"I w-wasn't. I –s-wear. Please. P-p-please d-don't. I'm s-sorry. I'm so, s-so sorry. I deserve this, I kn-know. I d-deserve th-this."

**TBC**

_A/N Next chapter will be out on Thursday. Thanks so much for reading! Please leave a review on your way out_:)


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N Thanks so much for the reviews for last chapter! Here's chapter two. Poor, poor Doctor..._

_Disclaimer: Opps, forgot to do this last chapter. But unfortunately I do not own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or any of the characters in the Whoniverse. One day though...one day..._

Gwen Cooper stepped up quietly behind Jack, staying a careful distance away from the shivering man huddled against the wall. She thought she recognized him, but the blood and bruises covering his face distorted his features. "Jack," She asked hesitantly. "Is that – Is that the Doctor?"

Jack didn't respond – which was conformation enough – but leaned forward so he was kneeling just in front of the Doctor. "Doc?" The Time Lord didn't respond, just kept repeating his mantra over and over again, not lifting his head from his thin, thin knees. Only now did Jack realize he was naked – _How did I not notice that earlier? Not now, Harkness! _– his ribs far too visible and pressing against the scarred skin of his back.

Cautiously Jack reached a hand forward and gently set it on the Doctor's quivering shoulders. Mistake number one. The Doctor jumped, crying out in surprise and…pain? He pressed himself even further against the wall, as if hoping he could possibly disappear through it. For the first time he raised his head and met Jack's eyes with his own dread-filled brown orbs. A glimmer of recognition flashed across them as he saw his old friend, cutting momentarily through the fear. "J-Jack?"

Jack smiled in relief but drew his hands back sharply, afraid of hurting or scaring him again. "Yeah, Doc, it's me. Jack."

The Doctor looked at him desperately before shaking his head. "P-please don't tell h-him, Jack! Please. I d-didn't mean to. D-didn't. me-mean. Deserve it."

He screwed his eyes shut again, tears still leaking out from under the lids. Jack couldn't help himself anymore; he reached out to cup the Doctor's stained cheek in one of his hands. Thankfully, instead of jumping away, the Doctor seemed to lean into the contact, still muttering and sobbing quietly. "It's okay," Jack said softly. "It's alright, he can't hurt you anymore, I promise."

The Doctor looked at him, his impossibly animated eyebrows pulled down in a frown of confusion. "Can't?"

"We got him, Doctor." Jack tried to sound comforting even though he couldn't help knowing that the Doctor – or at least the usual Doctor who hadn't been held prisoner in a basement for God knows how long – probably wouldn't have approved of him killing.

The Doctor started shaking his head. "N-n-no, Jack…"

"I know, Doc, but I had to."

"He c-can't be d-dead. Y-you can't k-kill him."

"Well we did, see?" He moved ever so slightly to the right so the Doctor could see the body behind him, now lying in a puddle of its own blood. But the Doctor grabbed Jack's wrist as he began to move, the thin fingers holding him surprisingly strong.

"Don't go." He begged desperately. His eyes were wide as saucers. "Please, Jack, d-don't leave."

"Hey, I'm not going to leave you, I swear." Jack promised. He reached out to put a comforting hand on the Doctor's shoulder, to prove he wasn't going anywhere, but this time the Doctor flinched, retracting his own hand from Jack's wrist. He curled up into himself again, shoulders shaking violently.

"Stop. Stop. Please." He began to mutter to himself again. Jack glanced back at Gwen, asking with a furrow of his eyebrows exactly what he'd done wrong. She answered with a confused shrug and a sympathetic look in the Doctor's direction. He'd balled his skinny hands into fists and was now ramming then against his forehead, eyes screwed up in obvious pain as each hit further aggravated the injuries on the back of his head.

"Stop that." Jack said sternly as he grabbed the Doctor's hands.

Mistake number two. The Doctor seemed to shatter even more at those words, looking at Jack as if he were some terrifying monster. "I'm s-sorry. I'm so, s-so s-s-sorry. Please d-don't hit me. P-p-please, Jack. I'm s-sor-ry."

Jack immediately let go of the Doctor's wrists, feeling as if he'd just been hit by a speeding train. Hurt the Doctor? How could he ever think Jack was capable of purposefully hurting him? "I'm not going to hurt you." He said as reassuringly as he could. "I could never, and I never ever will. Do you understand? I will _never _hit you, Doctor. For anything."

After a moment of paralyzed fear the Doctor began to nod slowly before he grabbed Jack's hands in turn. "I have to wake up, Jack. I c-can't sleep. N-not allowed. He'll h-hurt me again."

The Doctor thought he was dreaming? He actually thought Jack was just his imagination giving him false hope? Jack suddenly wondered how many times the Doctor had been rescued in his dreams only to wake up again in this hell. He flipped his hands over so he was holding the Doctor's, squeezing them confirmingly. "Doctor. Hey, look at me." The Doctor obeyed a little too quickly for Jack's liking, making him feel horrible for giving an order at all. But it was necessary. "You're not asleep, okay. You're not dreaming. I'm really here, and I'm getting you out." The Doctor began to shake his head but Jack interrupted him. "Look, see Gwen behind me? Would she be in one of your dreams? You two haven't even properly met before, why would you be dreaming about her?"

The Doctor seemed to notice Gwen for the first time. He stared at her for a long moment before saying in barely a whisper, "Gwen Cooper. Torchwood Three."

Gwen nodded to him kindly. "That's right, Doctor. It's nice to finally meet you in person. And he's right. Jack is, I mean. We're really here, and you're really getting out."

The Doctor gave a short, breathy laugh of relief as he finally believed them. Jack shot a grateful smile towards his partner before turning back to the Doctor. "Ready to get outta here?"

The Doctor smiled and Jack wondered how long it'd been since the Time Lord had had a genuine smile on his face. It made him beam, just like it always had. That damn smile.

"Let's get this off you." Jack suggested, surprised to find that he hadn't noticed the metal collar around the Doctor's neck connecting him by a chain to the wall until just now. He pulled out an ancient looking lock-picking kit from his pocket – he usually preferred just blasting locks off with a bullet or two, but in this case it was probably safer _not _to aim a gun at the Doctor's neck – and reached up to undo the collar.

Mistake number three. The Doctor suddenly swatted Jack's hand away, almost knocking out the lock-pick, and brought his own hands up to block the collar from reach. "No, Jack, we c-can't take it off! I'm n-not allowed! I'll be in s-so much t-t-trouble."

"He can't hurt you, remember? You don't have to follow his rules anymore."

The Doctor nodded after a second of consideration. "Right, sorry."

"And stop saying 'sorry'. You have absolutely nothing to apologize for."

The Doctor nodded a little more vigorously this time. "Okay Jack." He said steadily, the first few words he'd said that sounded remotely confident and not utterly derived from fear.

Jack smiled at him encouragingly, proud they had made some progress. "Thank you. Alright, is it okay if I take this collar off now?" He asked cautiously this time, wanting the Doctor to know he had a choice in this (even if he didn't _actually_ have a choice in it at all; Jack was taking that collar off him and getting him out of there no matter what he said otherwise). But this time the Doctor gave a faint, almost unnoticeable 'yes' as an answer and lowered his hands so Jack could reach the collar.

The lock wasn't complicated and popped open after just a little under a minute. "Gwen, go pull the car up closer to the door." Jack instructed, knowing the Doctor was in no state at all to walk as far away as the street. Gwen obeyed without a word, leaving Jack and the Doctor alone in the cellar.

With a finite _click_ the lock on the collar fell open and Jack gently guided it off the Doctor's neck, letting it fall to the floor with a heavy clatter. He gasped at what he saw. The skin that had been beneath the collar was completely raw and blistered, blood oozing out of the chafed cuts along the edges. He wondered how long it'd been since the collar had last been removed, but the more worrying question was how long the Doctor had been forced to wear it.

The Doctor shivered and Jack was reminded suddenly that, in this cold, underground prison, the Doctor hadn't been wearing anything besides the metal chain around his neck. He shrugged off his beloved World War II coat and wrapped it around the Doctor's now free shoulders, and the Time Lord seemed to literally melt into its warmth. The coat was almost comically too big. The Doctor had always been so thin and tall, but now he was just _too_ thin, and the coat accentuated this greatly by the way it hung limply off his skeletal frame.

Outside he heard the engines of the big Torchwood SUV pulling up closer and suddenly the Doctor looked worried again. "Jack, I'm s-so sorry –"

"It's okay, Doctor, what is it?" He asked comfortingly, hoping to avoid another breakdown. They had been doing so well.

"I c-can't walk." The Doctor admitted. "I'm s-sorry, I forgot to t-tell you. Please d-don't leave me behind."

For the first time Jack looked down at the Doctor's legs. Both the ankles were nearly completely covered in black and blue bruises, swollen, and sitting at awkward, impossible angle. "H-he broke both my ankles." The Doctor continued.

"Why?" It came out as a gust of air, barely a whisper of disbelief.

The Doctor hung his head. "I d-deserved it. I f-fell asleep, and h-he didn't give me p-permission."

Jack wanted to gag. The Doctor, the hero of Earth and too many other planets to count, was not just terrified and broken, but he actually _believed _he deserved this kind of treatment. To be punished for falling asleep without being told to do so.

But he decided not to confront it now. There would be time later to remind the Doctor of all the good he's done and the unlimited amount of good he deserves. Now they just had to get out of the basement.

"It's alright, Doc, I'll carry you, how's that?"

As gently as he could, Jack scooped up the Doctor, careful not to jolt his legs too much with the movement. The Doctor's emaciated arms wound themselves tightly around Jack's neck, like a child. Jack tried not to think about how light the Time Lord was – even for an alien there was no way it was possible to weigh this little. He wondered if all the weight he was feeling was just coming from his coat and the Doctor had somehow disappeared.

But the gently sniffing in his ear told Jack his friend was, in fact, still there. He began to make his way towards the small flight of stairs leading out of the cellar when the Doctor suddenly stiffened. "Don't d-drop me." The Doctor whispered urgently. "P-please don't drop me."

Jack turned his head so he could look directly into his friend's eyes. "I'm not going to let you go, Doctor." He said as convincingly as he could. "I'm not gonna let you fall."

**TBC**

**__**_A/N Not exactly much of a cliffhanger (I thrive off cliffhangers, me. So beware) But here's a thought to leave you with: Was it too easy? Are the Doctor, Jack, and Gwen _really_ safe? Tune in next time - coughSundaycough- to find out! But in the meantime...hey, why not leave a review? _


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N Yay reviews! You guys are awesome! Here's the next chapter, as promised. I hope you all enjoy it. The Doctor's not quite out of the fire just yet..._

Chapter 3

Gwen had pulled the SUV up as close as humanly possible to the cellar door. Jack stumbled out, trying to hold the Doctor as securely as he could without crushing whatever other injuries he had. He was going to need to be looked over, but he doubted his own medical knowledge would be enough, let alone Gwen and Ianto's.

Gwen jumped out of the driver seat and ran around the front of the car to open the backseat door for them. The Doctor groaned slightly as he was lowered into the seat, his broken ankles hitting the floor a little too roughly. He had grown used to their consistent throbbing and moments of sharp, piercing pain when jolted over however long they'd been broken – he deserved it, anyway – but the groan escaped his lips unwillingly. He bit down on his tongue to stop the sound, but Jack seemed to have already heard it.

"Sorry, Doc." He apologized, squeezing the Doctor's shoulder lightly. The Doctor just nodded and pulled Jack's coat closer around him, waiting for the ripples of pain to subside. They never did, but he could wait for them to become less intense and hope his body would go numb soon enough to cover it. His head was still throbbing agonizingly, so the sooner the better.

Jack gently closed the side door and ran around the front of the car. Gwen slid back into the driver's seat and, to the Doctor's surprise, Jack climbed into the back seat with him. "Let's get out of here, Gwen." The ex PC threw the car in reverse and gunned it down the lawn, running over flowers and overgrown bushes before swerving sharply onto the road.

The Doctor, who had not been prepared for the sudden movement, found himself flying forward, slamming into the soft back of the chair in front of him before falling sideways into Jack, who had braced himself against the door. He groaned again as his whole body screamed in protest to the unexpected action, especially his head, which felt swollen, inflamed, and thick.

Then he realized with a start that he was still laying with his head in Jack's lap and pushed himself back upright, shuffling as far into the opposite corner of the backseat as he could. "I'm s-sorry." He stammered before remembering that he'd been ordered not to apologize anymore. He bit his lip and glanced towards Jack nervously, wondering how the ex Time Agent was going to react to being disobeyed. Maybe he would get away with just a sharp back-hand, or maybe another slice on his arm to join the others from when he'd forget to say 'sir'. That wouldn't be too bad. He could handle that.

But instead Jack began to laugh, not cruelly or harshly, but a genuinely humored laugh. "I know we're alone in the back seat, but let's not get too excited, Doctor. Here, safety first." He scooped closer to the Time Lord and, reaching around him, began to pull out the seatbelt, moving it around the Doctor's body getting ready to click it into place.

The Doctor instantly tensed, panic rising inside him like a tidal wave, threatening to drown him. His breath caught in his throat and he began to make a harsh, desperate wheezing sound as he tried to force air back into his lungs. No, not Jack. Not Jack too. He tried to speak, to apologize, to beg Jack even, but the words wouldn't make it past the lump of fear lodged somewhere near his Adam's Apple.

"It's alright, Doc, it was just a joke." He said with the hint of a laugh still in his voice. But then he looked at the Doctor's face and saw the fear in his wide, saucer-like eyes, begging him, his whole body shaking and trembling, and suddenly realized his mistake. The seatbelt.

"Crap." Jack muttered under his breath as the Doctor continued to whimper, trying to avoid apologizing at all costs. "I didn't m-mean t-to. I'm s- please, J-Jack, d-d-don't." Jack was frozen for a moment before breaking out of his reverie and unbuckling the Doctor, letting the strap slide automatically back into their holds. The Doctor was quivering, still backed as far as he could get into the side of the door. Tears were falling freely down his bruised and too pale face as he looked with frightened eyes towards the man he thought was his friend and was now wondering if he was just another villain in his life. It _killed_ Jack inside to see the Doctor, his friend, look at him with such fear and minute distrust.

"Doctor…shhh, I'm sorry. You're not in trouble, I promise." He said as kindly as he could. "I'm sorry I freaked you out. The seatbelt's to keep you from getting even more injured, remember? To stop you from flying around like you just were…"

After a moment the Doctor let out a frustrated sigh, the swelling fear inside him ebbing away. He knew that, he _knew _that. Of course Jack wasn't going to strap him down, wasn't going to hurt him. Jack was one of the good ones; one of the only good ones left he was sure about. One of the Doctor's hands was still clutching the too-large coat tightly around him, but the other he untangled from the folds and took Jack's hand in his own strange way of apologizing without saying it. He would have, but he could feel his one beating heart pounding thickly in his throat and he doubted he'd be able to form words around it. He squeezed his hand as strongly as he could to show his understanding, but his grip was scarily not strong at all.

Jack squeezed back and smiled. "You don't have to wear it if you don't want to." He told him. "That's alright."

The Doctor smiled slightly, swallowing deeply. "T-thanks."

Jack nodded and shifted his weight in the seat so he wasn't sitting too close to the Doctor to worry him, but close enough so he could catch him from falling again. After all, he'd promised him earlier he wouldn't let him fall again.

The Doctor seemed to relax, shifting slightly out of the corner he'd backed himself into so he was sitting comfortably next to Jack. He was battling with himself inside: he wanted to get closer, embrace his friend, feel that friendly human contact he'd come to admire so much over the centuries and that he hadn't experienced in – Rassilon, _so_ long – but he feared if he stayed too close the illusion would shatter and he would simply pass through Jack as if he were made of smoke and dreams. Or maybe, the Doctor thought worryingly, Jack wouldn't want something as pathetic and worthless as himself sitting too close.

Jack seemed to sense the Doctor's hesitation, as he gently pulled the Doctor closer, wrapping an arm reassuringly around his thin shoulders. Tensing at first, the Doctor relaxed into the hold, savoring the warmth of the closeness. He felt the adrenaline that had been coursing through his veins ever since waking up again slowly beginning to dissipate, taking with it what little energy he had. The car began to float in and out of focus before his eyes nauseatingly, so he screwed them shut, turning his face into Jack's shoulder. His whole head was whirling. It hurt so much, and he was so, so tired.

"Jack." He whispered.

"Yeah, Doc?" Jack replied softly.

"I'm s-so tired."

"It's alright Doctor, I know it's been hard. You've been so strong. Go to sleep."

The Doctor began to cry again as the darkness pressed on further, fear battling the pain of staying awake. "I c-c-can't, Jack. He'll h-hurt me again. I'm n-not allowed"

"Yes you are. I'm giving you my permission, Doctor. You can go to sleep."

He fought it, combating the tempting embrace of unconsciousness, but it came rushing in to greet him, the back of his head positively _howling _with a stabbing pain that seemed to fade away the further he fell. He was curled securely in the curve of Jack's side, face buried in his blue shirt which was quickly becoming damp with the tears escaping him, and he felt, for the first time in _years_, safe.

**Page Break**

Jack was admittedly surprised by how quickly the Doctor seemed to fall asleep against him. They sat there for a minute or two, Jack pulling the Doctor closer as the Time Lord clutched almost desperately to Jack's side, before the Doctor's almost inaudible mutterings of variations of "can't" – Jack wasn't even sure if some of them were human – began to drift away.

Looking down at the Doctor's thin, abused body shrouded in his too-large coat, Jack felt a sudden anger bubbling up inside him. That _bastard! _He wanted to punch something, anything! What had that monster done to his Doctor; what could have possibly turned that strong, audacious, chivalrous, impossible being into the broken, shaking, terrified man beside him. And how _could _it? What could _possibly_ look at the Doctor and think 'Hmm, this guy is so hateful, let's hurt him for shits and giggles.'

_A lot of races, actually,_ Jack realized, which made him even angrier. The Doctor just seemed so vulnerable right now, so defenseless and small, almost like a child. Jack began to run his hand through the Doctor's wild hair protectively, but froze as his fingers ran through a thick patch of something sticky, wet, and warm…

He pulled his hand back. It was slick with red blood. "Shit…"

"What? What's wrong?" Gwen called from the front seat, trying to glance back while speeding through the traffic back to Cardiff.

"Give me your phone." Jack demanded. He held out the arm that wasn't currently wrapped around the Doctor as Gwen dug into her pocket and handed him her mobile. Jack began to dial, fingers shaking. He was so out of his depths. That injury on the back of his head could not possibly be better then it looked and it looked _bad._ Who knows what else could be wrong! And there was only one person he trusted enough to look over the Doctor medically.

The phone rang three times before it was picked up. "Jack, if you're drunk dialing me again on my honeymoon, I swear – "

"Martha, shut up and get back to the Hub." Jack ordered, glancing down to make sure his harsh tone didn't wake or scare the Doctor, but he wasn't even sure if the Doctor was able to wake up at this point. He had to have a pretty bad concussion at _least._

"I'm in Greece." Martha replied with a hint of a laugh, as if it hadn't been the first time he'd forgotten she was on her honeymoon with Mickey. Actually, it wasn't.

"I don't care if you're sunbathing on Mars, get back to Cardiff _now._"

"What's wrong?" Her mockingly angry voice instantly faded to one of worry

Jack paused, wondering how he was going to put it. This wasn't exactly something he'd ever rehearsed saying. "It's – It's the Doctor." He finally said simply.

Martha's voice was tense. "Is he okay?"

Jack stared at the emaciated, unconscious Doctor in his arms, then at the blood slowly drying on his hand and shoulders. He swallowed thickly before replying. "No."

**TBC**

_A/N Okay, so, here's the deal: I'm going to be majorly swamped for the next couple weeks (just joined a sorority! Gonna be busy as hell!) So I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the next one up by Thursday like I'd promised earlier. But it will be up as soon as I get a chance to go through and edit it and everything. Until next time! _


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N Sorry all for the unacceptable lateness of this chapter! I was about to post it when I realized that I absolutely hated it and needed to rewrite the whole thing. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I was having a lot of trouble with this one and I wanted to get it out to you as soon as I could. Hope you enjoy!_

Chapter 4

The flight back to Cardiff had been a blur. One long, agonizing blur. Jack hadn't gone into much detail over the phone, but if the tone of his voice spoke for anything, he was freaking out. All Martha knew as she threw her things haphazardly into a suitcase and dodged a few irritated and confused comments from her new husband was that the steadfast Captain Jack was scared and the Doctor needed her help, and badly.

Those two aspects combined were enough to make her blood run cold, but nothing could have compared her for what she saw upon rushing into the hub just barely four hours later, having miraculously caught the first plane out of Athens. Now, Martha Smith was a doctor; she'd seen many gruesome injuries and disturbing scenarios during her time at the hospital and then with UNIT before going freelance, and while she stayed far away from being detached, she had always felt a certain level of professionalism was owed towards her patients at those times. But now – now this was hitting way too close to home.

Martha felt as if her heart had been stabbed though by a shaft of ice, frozen over, and then shattered as she first looked down at the bloodied and broken frame of her Doctor. "We got the other heart going." Jack was saying beside her, but his voice now sounded far away and so very tired. "And we took care of the minor wounds we could see, but – well, as you can probably tell, there's a _lot _more…"

Jack's voice trailed off slowly. They were speaking in whispers, partially because they didn't want to wake the Doctor, but mostly because neither of them felt like there was enough air reaching their lungs to speak normally. The two companions were so used to the Doctor filling the room with his loud, unstoppable gob, probably rambling on about some sort of technical gibberish only he would understand. But now, with the Doctor laying unconscious on the stark white medical bed, the room was too quiet.

"What happened, Jack?" Martha breathed. Jack let out a sigh as he ran a hand through his hair, which was rumpled in a way that suggested he'd already done that quite a few times.

"Still working on it. I've never seen or heard of anything like it – " – or _felt_ anything like it – " – But whatever it was, we need to figure it out and make sure there aren't more of them."

"More of them?"

"I did what I could for him but, well, you're the medical expert here." Martha scoffed. Expert? The only expert on how to heal a Time Lord's body in probably the whole universe was the Doctor, and seeing as he's the one in need of healing, the odds weren't looking very good.

Jack had filled her in on all the major injuries he'd found earlier. Severe damage to the back of the head; definite concussion, possible permanent damage to the brain. X-rays would be needed, and an MRI would be nice and handy, but it seemed they were going to have to wait till the Doctor wakes up to get a full concussion test. Both ankles broken, although one seemed to be healing faster than the other, which was not mending properly and would need to be rebroken and reset. Broken ribs, fractured collarbone, cuts and bruises mangling his chest, arms, face, and back, not to mention black marks on his toes, the tips of his fingers and, strangely, his knees that Martha could only identify as frostbite. There was also the ring of bruising and gashes caused by chafing around his neck and, of course, the obvious malnutrition and dehydration that made the Doctor look as thin and breakable as a twig and made Martha, insanely, hesitate to touch him for fear of causing him the shatter into a million tiny pieces. But she had to. It was her job. Save the Doctor.

Martha chuckled despite herself as she recognized the role reversal going on.

Jack shuffled out of the room, muttering something about coffee and research, leaving Martha alone with her patient. After another frozen moment – Martha could hear the Doctor's weak, rattled breath now, see the sweat forming on his blood-stained brow, his face ashen against the unyieldingly white pillow – she set to work.

There were tests that needed to be done. The sweat on his forehead and the slight fever he was running could mean infection, and, from the state of him, he could have picked up any illness with what had to be a weakened immune system. Martha wanted to get a blood test going as soon as possible so she could work on his more physical injuries while it was being processed.

She squeezed the Doctor's limp hand as she moved to his side and dragged a tray of needles, syringes, and wipes closer. She held a finger to his arm, feeling a weak but surprisingly fast double-pulse, and began to clean the spot with an antibacterial pad. Next she attached a tube to the needle and lowered the sharp tip to his skin.

The needle had barely pricked the surface when suddenly the Doctor's arm was wrenched away from her. Martha jumped as the Doctor woke as if by electrical shock, his whole body convulsing as he tried to lurch up, eyes screwed shut in pain. He held the arm close to his chest as if trying to protect it. "No, please, no more. Please."

"Shhh, easy Doctor, it's alright." Martha said in an urgent yet soothing voice. She gently held his shoulders in what she hoped was a supportive and comforting action, trying to channel her best bedside manner while her own heart beat heavily in her ears. Was the Doctor…begging?

The Doctor flinched when she touched him at first before he froze, letting the sound of her voice sink into his mind. His eyes flew open suddenly and Martha was amazed to see then alight with recognition and surprise. A moment of stunned silence passed between them as Martha studied the complexity of those ancient, tortured eyes before it was broken by the Doctor's weak voice. "M-Martha?"

Martha smiled. "Yeah, Doctor, it's me. Long time no see, eh?"

The Doctor didn't respond or smile back immediately, but instead reached forward with his long fingers and, carefully as if touching a butterfly, placed them on her cheek, softly gliding them over her skin to feel her nose and the curve of her jaw. Martha began to wonder what he was doing when a laugh broken with relief escaped his lips.

"You're alive?" He breathed in awe, smiling against the pain he felt with each breath.

Martha placed her own hand gently over his, cupping her face so as to prove she was truly, actually there. "Yes of course I'm alive." She smiled reassuringly.

The Doctor laughed again – a hoarse laugh as if he, of all people, had forgotten how to do it – before a fit of coughing attacked him. Martha rushed to help him sit up, letting him lean heavily on her as his body was wracked with the onslaught. "I k-knew – he was – l-lying." He managed to gasp between the coughs.

She rubbed her hand in soothing circles on his back as his body once again convulsed, his breath rattling in her ear as he tried to suck in air. He had absolutely no strength, relying almost entirely on laying her shoulder in order to keep himself upright.

"There we go." She said as the coughing became less violent. Still holding his upper body against herself, Martha shuffled the pillows with her one free hand so they were propped up better and the gently lowered the shaking Time Lord back into the bed. "You alright?" Even though she could guess the answer he wouldn't say.

The Doctor nodded stiffly as he collapsed into the pillows, letting his eyes slid shut momentarily. "Mucus in –" Cough "the lungs. Pneumonia –" Cough "I think. Respiratory bypass should –" Cough "sort it out soon."

Martha was just relieved to hear the Doctor speaking more like himself (minus the coughing), as if being able to explain something to a 'companion' again strengthened his voice and made him sound more sure of himself than previously. But something he had said before suddenly seemed to register in her mind. "What do you mean, he was lying?"

The Doctor opened his eyes, looking worriedly up at Martha. "He said you w-were dead? Said he k-killed you." Then he smiled. "But I knew. It'd t-take more than t-that to take down the famous Martha Jones."

"Who is he?"

His smile instantly dropped, a shadow crossing over his features as he subconsciously wrapped his arms around his torso as if to protect himself. "I d-don't – I c-can't – not n-now, Martha."

"Okay, that's okay." Martha assured as she rubbed his shoulder. The Doctor flinched again at her touch, but this time it didn't seem to be from fear but from pain. She'd almost forgotten about the broken collarbone, not to mention all the other injuries riddling his body. "We don't have to talk about him. But can I fix you up?"

The Doctor went to nod but instead gasped loudly as the movement sent a spike of vicious pain through his skull. He clutched at it as his vision flashed white, madly wondering if he pulled his head clean off his shoulders if the pain would stop. "Oh, my head." He groaned through clenched teeth.

Through the pain he felt kind fingers gently trying to peel away his own. He released his hold was an surprised to find that the pain didn't escalate without his grip holding it in.

Martha lowered The Doctor's hands to his lap and began to examine the large gash on the back of his head. Most of the blood had been cleaned away – probably by Jack – leaving the hair surrounding it tinted slightly with red. Luckily it didn't look too horrible, but it would definitely need stitches and probably an x-ray to make sure the skull hadn't been cracked. Jack had said it came from the Doctor being bashed against a stone wall, so concussion was a definite already. He shouldn't have been allowed to sleep so long…

"Doesn't look too bad, Doctor." She tried to settle him. "Just need a couple stitches, maybe an x-ray."

"No, I…I don't think anything's cracked." He muttered uncertainly.

"Just in case, then." Martha pressed a finger as gently as she could against the puckered skin surrounding the gash, trying to estimate if there was swelling. The Doctor flinched and sucked I air harshly through his teeth. "Sorry." Martha winced sympathetically. "We should get those stitches going as soon as possible though. Here," She pulled the tray holding the syringes and different bottles of clear liquid, which had been forgotten for the time being, closer and reached for one of the syringes. "I'll just give you a little Lidocaine so you won't feel –"

The Doctor spun around and grabbed her wrist just as she was closing her fingers around the syringe. "No." He growled, glaring straight into her surprised eyes. "No drugs. No needles."

Something in his eyes scared Martha; perhaps it was how scared _he_ was. There was definite fear behind that glare, and she noticed how his eyes kept flitting between hers and the needle still in her hand.

Pointedly, she dropped her hold on the syringe and shoved the tray away. The Doctor visibly relaxed, still gripping her wrist tightly though. "Okay," She said slowly, moving her hands into a sort of sign of surrender. "No drugs, no needles. But Doctor, you know I would never do anything to hurt or scare you, right?"

The Doctor shivered, _remembering_. "N-no more drugs. P-please."

**TBC**

_A/N What is the Doctor remembering? Will there be some whumpy flashbacks in the next chapter?...Actually I'm not even sure (I gotta do some major rewriting) BUT that should be even MORE incentive for you to check in for the next one, cuz you never know what you're gonna get. Till then, a friendly reminder: The review box does. not. bite. It's valentines day, show it some love :) _


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N This is definitely my longest chapter to date, but it's been a while since I updated, so I think you guys deserve it. Here's the next chapter, filled with a little more whump. Don't worry, there is PLENTY more to come…_

The cup of coffee sat empty on the desk, having been drained within seconds of being poured. Now the drinker sat on the edge of his seat, elbows resting on the table with his head cradled in his hands as he tried to think. No, not think about that crumpled and bloodied man chained to the wall like a dog. No, not even about how what should be the proudest creature in all the universe had just hours before begged him not to put on the seatbelt. And he definitely, _definitely _should not be thinking about how scared he is for how scared _he _was.

But that seemed to be all Jack could picture; the fear in the Doctor's eyes and the blood on his face and the bruises that covered his battered body. He had left Martha alone in that room not just because the doctor needed time with her patient, but because he wanted – he _needed_ to get away, and clear his mind of all the horror stories he was formulating that would explain how something like this could have possibly happened. But it appeared that Jack didn't need to be looking directly at the Doctor to still see the blood and bruises and fear. Just closing his eyes brought it all right back up.

Jack jumped as he heard a sudden trickle of liquid near his ear. He looked up to see Ianto standing over him, pouring a fresh cup of coffee into his mug as he watched his boss with steady, worried eyes.

Jack sat up quickly and cleared his throat, muttering a faint "Thanks" as he shuffled around the papers on his desk, trying to make it look like he'd been doing _something._ Ianto finished pouring the coffee and sighed.

"You look like shit, sir."

Jack gave a short snort of laughter as he lifted the mug, tilting it in Ianto's direction in the mocking style of a toast. _Not as bad as him,_ He thought as he took a sip of the scalding liquid. It burned all the way down his throat and somehow, with its pain, alleviated that which he felt for the Time Lord lying in the other room.

"You're going to have to toss out that shirt." Ianto continued. "Those blood stains aren't going to come out, and red and blue don't necessarily go."

"You just wanna get me out of my clothes." Jack smirked momentarily before clearing his throat again. "Sorry, not the right time, I know."

Ianto set down the coffee pot and placed his hands on the table, leaning forward so he could see the papers Jack was shuffling around, trying to organize. A frown crept up on his face. "Are those the recent Rift activity records?"

Jack nodded as he scanned over the garbled stats and lines on one sheet before shoving it under the stack and grabbing another.

"What makes you think whatever it is came through the Rift?" Gwen must have filled Ianto in on the details; the only communication Jack had had with him since getting back to the Hub had been orders shouted over his shoulder as he hauled the unconscious Doctor into the medical room, pointedly saying over and over again '_don't_ give him aspirin!'

With a sigh and a shrug, Jack took another sip of coffee, letting it burn the taste buds off his tongue. "I don't think it came through the Rift. Well, I don't know – It could have." Jack ran his hand through his hair, finally understanding what the Doctor meant when he said he needed a bigger brain. Everything was too jumbled and convoluted to process straight. "I have no idea," He finally admitted. "But the point is that I need to imagine I'm doing something productive with my life right now, and this is the only thing I can think of. 'Cause until the Doctor wakes up and tells us what's going on – _if _he will tell us," Jack didn't even want to get into if the Doctor would even wake up. "Then we're pretty much out of our depths here. I mean, I've never – We haven't –"

Jack sighed. "Ianto, we don't know anything about it. What it was, how it got here, if there are more, what – what it could do. I didn't even _think _about grabbing the body! I just wanted to get the Doctor out. The only thing we know is how to kill them if there's more." Jack was admittedly relieved remembering how easy it had been. Three bullets to the chest (faster and less painful than it deserved, in his mind). But then again…it hadn't been easy, had it? _Gwen_ had fired those shots. Jack…Jack hadn't even been able to breath, let alone hold the gun stable enough to shoot. Maybe it wasn't that easy to kill them…

Ianto frowned. "What good would the body have done, sir? It wasn't in there anymore. And what do you mean kill it?"

"Three bullets to the chest…" Jack answered automatically, voice quiet and far away as he thought about those impossible blue eyes again. Then suddenly his brain seemed to register what Ianto had said. "Wait, what? What'd you just say?"

Ianto looked startled by Jack's sudden snap back to reality. "The body. How would bringing the body back help if the thing had already left it?"

It was Jack's turn to frown in confusion. "Left? What left what?"

"I dunno." Ianto shrugged quickly. "Just something Gwen said when I was talking to her just now. She said it got away. Something about a blue light leaving the body, this – this feeling? – and then disappearing through the ceiling or something."

Ianto wasn't making much sense at all, according to Jack. A blue light? Disappearing through the ceiling? The only part of Ianto's story that added up to his memory was the part about the feeling – whatever it had been. He had spent the whole drive back to Cardiff cradling the Doctor in his lap and replaying the experience over and over in his head so as to engrain it in his memory, and nothing about lights and ceilings had been involved. "Why would she say that?"

Ianto was starting to look uncomfortable, not sure exactly what he had said wrong, but Jack, clearly, didn't seem to notice. Caught in another sudden whirlwind of worry, he pushed himself up by the edge of the desk, sending Rift reports flying all over the table and floor in his haste as he shouldered passed his friend towards the door. He flew around the corner with one hand gripping the edge of the doorframe and threw a glance around the main center of the Hub. Machinery and computers were flashing their usual flashes and humming their usual hums, but there was no other sound or movement.

"Gwen!"

There was no answer. He swung himself down the steps, taking them two at a time while Ianto took his place at the top of the stairs, watching his boss cautiously. Jack called out Gwen's name again and this time the sound of a door opening answered him. He spun around, but it was only Martha, coming out of the doorway from the medical rooms.

"Jack?"

"Where's Gwen?" He ignored the red blotches standing out in sharp contrast with the white of her shirt, spinning ridiculously on the spot as if the dark haired Welsh woman was hiding just over his shoulder.

"Jack." Martha repeated, this time a little more sternly.

"This is important, Martha."

"He's awake."

The American froze mid turn. "What?" It seemed like a stupid question, but at the time it was all he could think to say.

"The Doctor." Martha clarified unnecessarily. "And he's asking for you."

And for the second time, Jack forgot all about the apparent blue light. He straightened up, turning to face Martha fully. "How is he?" He didn't really want to know the answer.

The small smile she'd had on her lips faltered and her eyes flicked towards the ground. She reached behind her and quietly closed the door before answering. "Still really shaken up, that's understandable. I can tell he's in a lot of pain, but for some reason he won't let me give him any drugs. Yes, I know, not aspirin." She said as Jack began to open his mouth. "But he won't let me do anything intravenously or even take a blood sample. He gets really freaked out if I go anywhere near him with a needle."

Again, Jack ran his hand through his hair, ruffling into what would have been a comical do if it weren't for the frown on his face. "Maybe, for now, it'd be best not to freak him out any more than we have to. I mean, do you _have _to do anything with an IV? Can you give him anything orally?"

Martha shook her head. "Nothing strong enough for the pain, no. And besides, he is…_very_ malnourished. And we thought he was skinny enough to begin with. I'm worried he won't be able to digest substantial enough food without an IV. But anyway, he won't rest until he talks to you, so…"

She motioned towards the door. Jack, still trying to find ways around the IV, found none and decided his best choice was to simply try to talk the Doctor into it. He had to prove to him somehow that it was okay – and figure out why the Doctor thought it wasn't. A shiver went down Jack's spine as he considered the options.

Martha pulled open the grey door and stepped inside, allowing Jack to follow her.

The Doctor was sitting sideways on the bed, his heavily bandaged legs dangling over the side as he leaned against a tall pile of pillows for support. He was staring at his left wrist, which was being held by his right, and gently rotating it as he considered it. As the door swung shut he looked up, momentarily nervous before a smile – a _big_ smile – lit up his face.

"My hero." He said as Captain Jack smiled back at him.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty." Jack managed to say. "Nice to see those pretty eyes again." He tried to joke in order to keep his voice as even as possible, what with all the emotions that had just been running through him. Worry, fear, anger, worry again, relief. He tried to make sure only the last one was received, and _especially _not the third.

Martha moved around the bed to stand behind the Doctor. "I've just been fixing him with some stitches." She said as she checked the back of his head once more. "Luckily the Doctor heals fast, the other cuts and bruises are already on the mend."

"Yep, just needed some fresh air. I'll be back to normal in no time." Jack could hear how fake the words were coming out of the Doctor's mouth. They were too rushed, too precise, as if he were forcing himself not to stutter like before. The Doctor swung his legs back onto the bed once Martha was done checking the stitches, but winced strongly as his broken right ankle snagged on the side of the mattress.

"Now that ankle's what I'm worried about." Martha said in her doctor's voice. "It's healing, but it's healing at the wrong angle. It's been left too long, which means we're going to have to reset it."

"Well, better now then never." The Doctor sniffed. Jack was still surprised by how calm the Doctor seemed, but upon closer inspection he could see the Time Lord's shoulders shaking slightly as he tried to hold himself up, could see the way his eyes flitted, fast as lightening, between Martha and Jack and the door, as if preparing to run if necessary. But running on that ankle wasn't going to happen.

"Doctor, in order to reset it we may have to re-break it."

"Really, Martha? Hadn't thought about that. I thought there was a reset button like on a plug." He smiled cheekily at her for a moment before his smile slipped. "Oh Rassilon, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be –"

But Martha was laughing and hadn't heard the Doctor's last whispered words. "Good to hear you sounding more like yourself." The corner of his lip twitched towards a smile when he realized she wasn't mad.

Jack, too, was happy to hear the Doctor poking fun at people again, but he remembered why he'd been called in here and knew this was the cue from Martha. "It's probably gonna hurt a lot though, Doc." He chose his words carefully. "And we don't want to put you in anymore pain."

The Doctor turned slowly to look at Jack as if he knew where this was going. "We can give you something so you don't even feel –"

"No." The Doctor interrupted.

"Doctor…"

"No, Jack." He repeated firmly.

"Re-breaking a bone is going to be painful." Martha put in.

"I can handle it." Jack went to open his mouth, but the Doctor fixed him with a steely glare. "Jack, I've been stuck in a cellar, _tortured,_ for almost two years now." Jack blanched. _Two years?_ "I think I can tolerate one more broken bone. Just _don't _drug me. Please."

The please was said tightly, but Jack could see the begging in the Doctor's now wide eyes. Martha could see it, too, and as she and Jack shared a glance she bit her lip and shook her head just enough. Jack agreed. As horrible as the thought was, maybe what they really needed to do was to realize just how much pain he was in and how much he would want the pain killers.

And so it was decided. While Martha examined the x-rays she must have taken while Jack was out pouring copious amounts of coffee down his throat, the time agent himself helped the Doctor sit up a little more, positioning the pillows so the Doctor could lean back and still be upright. Now that there wasn't much talking, the Doctor seemed to wilt back into himself, his façade of being 'okay' crumbling away with each second. His limps were shaking; whether out of shock for what had just happened or anticipation for the pain that was about to happen, it was hard to tell.

Ianto poked his head in at one point and the Doctor jumped, watching the new face nervously before he managed to put two and two together and recognize Ianto Jones. When asked if he could be of any service, Jack sent him off to grab a leather belt, at which time the Doctor had to force down a whimper. He _definitely _wasn't a fan of belts anymore.

But when Ianto returned, Martha was just about ready to reset the break, without anesthesia, and Jack took the belt and handed it over to the confused Doctor. "Here," He said. "Bite down on this, tongue underneath."

The Doctor did as he was told. The leather tasted salty and bitter. Jack moved to the Doctor's side and instantly took up the Time Lord's hand, squeezing it in reassurance as he placed one hand on the good shoulder. Martha positioned herself by the Doctor's leg, hands hovering over the weakened section of broken bone.

"Ready?" She asked. The Doctor nodded through the leather between his teeth. Martha frowned at him, offering him another chance to change his mind and take the drugs, but he just nodded a second time and, with a sigh, Martha resigned. "Alright then, on three. Two."

_CRACK. _

"AHH!" The Doctor tried to buck up, to curl into a ball to protect himself from the pain lacing through his leg, but Jack's hand caught him and held him down against the pillow. The Doctor's eyes screwed shut as the world madly flashed white and then black. "Doctor?" A voice called through the pain, but he didn't respond, allowing the pain to slowly drift away.

"We need to cast this. Jack, do you have any plaster?"

"No." The Doctor managed to grind out through the pain, having dropped the belt. "Just – just wrap – it. Should – heal soon."

Martha made a sound as if she was going to object, but Jack made it unnecessary. "We don't have any plaster, and we're not taking him to a hospital to get some."

"No shit, Sherlock." The Doctor heard her mutter under her breath. The majority of the pain had subsided, leaving an intense throbbing around the area of the break that would soon become numb anyway. "Doctor, are you sure you don't want anything?" Martha offered again.

"No…" The word came out as nothing more than a sigh as the Doctor leaned back into the pillows, sinking into their warm depths. He was exhausted, more so then he'd been before, and the world was spinning before his eyes.

"Okay then," Came Jack's voice. "If you won't take any meds, then at least try to get some rest, sleep off the pain." The Doctor shook his head, no longer trusting his voice or trusting himself not to vomit. "It's okay, Doc." Jack continued. "You can sleep, we won't let anything happen to you while you're out. You can count on us."

"_Count." _

_SMACK. _

"…_one." _

_SMACK. _

"_Two." _

_SMACK. _

"_Th-three." _

_The Doctor kept his eyes shut so he wouldn't see the cat-o-nine-tails being swung up high in the air before crashing down on his back, his shoulders, his legs. Wouldn't see _him_ dipping it up to the braided handle in the vat of lemon juice and vinegar before bringing it down on him once more. _

_Each strike of the lash stung more than the last, and the lemon and vinegar burned and seared its way into each gash along his skin. By the tenth count, tears were streaming down his face, and by the twentieth he was screaming. He tried to beg, but today that seemed to anger _him _more, bringing the lash down three, four times in quick succession, the length wrapping around his side and tearing away the skin. Today was not a begging day. Yesterday had been. It was so hard to figure out, to obey. _

_By thirty he could hardly keep the count. All that kept the Doctor up was the chain wrapped around his neck, tightened so he was held tight against the wall with little leeway. His hands, currently bound in front of him, were being pressed into the stone barrier by his body and had lost all feeling in the fingers. _

_At thirty-five the strikes stopped and he heard the whip clatter against the stone ground. There was a clanking of machinery in the wall and the chain was released. No longer being held up, the Doctor crumbled to the ground, crying out loud as agony coursed across his back from the gashes that criss-crossed his skin. _He_ walked closer as the Doctor whimpered at his feet. The Doctor looked up at the shadow to see the blinding blue. _

"_What do we say?" _

"_Th-thank you, s-sir." The Doctor moaned. _

"_And what do we not do?" _

"_F-fall as-s-sleep, sir." _

"_Good boy." _He _patted the Doctor's head like an obedient dog, picked up the cat-o-nine, and left the Doctor in his bloody, agonizing heap, desperately forcing his eyes to stay open, fighting off the darkness. _

"It's okay, Jack. I'm not tired." The Doctor lied.

**TBC**

_A/N 4 out of 5 Doctors recommend leaving a review. Side effects may include a happy author, faster chapter updates, and good karma. If any of these symptoms occur please continue use. _


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N Another chapter so soon? You lucky, lucky ducks! This is a reward for all the wonderful reviews you guys left me…and also because this chapter was already written, didn't need much tweaking to follow the new story direction, and I'm bored out of my mind. This chapters a bit fluffier then what I usually write, but it's necessary, so I hope you enjoy it all the same! _

"Bullshit." Jack called him on his bluff, causing the Doctor to flinch slightly at the harsh word. Jack ignored it and continued. "You're exhausted. We can all see that. If you just sleep –"

"Time Lords don't need as much sleep as humans, you know that." The Doctor tried in a quiet voice, but Jack cut him off again.

"No, _healthy_ Time Lords don't need as much sleep as humans, but no offence, you look pretty much as far from healthy as you can get. Now, if it's _permission_ you think you need –"

"Jack…" The low, warning tone came from Martha. Jack looked up to find himself fixed with one of her fiery death-glares, warning him to stand down. She had found a rather large amount of ace bandage in one of the cupboards and was now carefully wrapping it around the Doctor's ankles.

"I'm s-sorry, Jack." The Doctor winced as his fracture was jolted. Truth be told, the Doctor didn't actually know what he was apologizing for, but the way Jack was speaking – the clipped words, the harsh tone, the ever-so-slightly raised voice – made him begin to panic. What had he done wrong? He wasn't sleeping – he _knew_ sleeping was wrong – so Jack should be pleased, right? He was just following instructions.

The Doctor thought he'd been doing so well. Martha had smiled when he tried to smile. Jack had released a sigh of relief when he'd tried to talk without a stutter or hesitation. But he could feel determination crumbling. Jack was still mad, despite his efforts, and he didn't know what else to do.

"Crap. Doc, I'm not – I'm not mad." Jack tried to backtrack but Martha, who had just finished securing the ace wrap with a piece of medical tape, grabbed him by the upper arm.

"A word, Captain Comforting?" She pretty much growled as she dragged him off to the corner of the room.

The Doctor had been nervously twirling his skinny, pale fingers around the edge of the bed sheets, avoiding either of their eye contact, but he couldn't stop from hearing Martha's whispered words. Initially he flinched at how mad she sounded before he realized her anger wasn't towards him, but towards Jack. "I get that you're upset about what happened," She was saying, "I understand that you're just trying to help, but for God's sake can you try to be a little more sensitive? He's been through something extremely horrifying and it's going to take more than a couple hours and stitches to fix. We have to let him heal at his own rate and make sure he knows we're here to support him, whatever he chooses."

"As long as he doesn't choose something that's just hurting him more in the long run." Jack ground out between his teeth.

"Your dam is crumbling, Jack. Keep your emotions under control. The last thing the Doctor needs is to think you're angry with him."

There was a pause of silence before Jack let out a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. "I know. I know, it's just –"

"Look, it's late." Martha interjected, glancing down at her watch. It was still set on Athens's time, telling her it was almost two o'clock in the morning – no wonder she was so bloody tired – which meant it was almost midnight. "You've been through a lot today."

"_I've _been through a lot?"

"Go get some sleep." Martha ordered. "You're angry and exhausted, not a good combination, and you can't help the Doctor if you're sleep deprived, too." Jack was about to protest when he found himself locked under another one of her glares that plainly stated _get out of my medical bay. _

Jack glanced over at the Doctor one more time, who was watching them nervously out of the corner of his eye, before he resigned. "Fine." He sighed. He spun around and walked hurriedly towards the door before even more of the venom coursing through him could come to the surface.

Martha took a second to take a calming breath before turning back to the Doctor. He could tell the small smile on her face was strained. "I-I'm sorry." He repeated in a whisper.

"About what?" She asked kindly as she came back to his bedside.

"I…" He stopped and swallowed heavily, watching her face. "Is he m-mad at me? Jack?"

Martha sighed. "Here, scoot." She nudged him gently in a spot on his arm she knew wasn't injured. He shifted his weight away to make more room for her, but a spike of agony stopped him from going much further. Martha sat on the edge of the bed and carefully brushed back a stray piece of his wild brown hair. It was overgrown and in need of cutting.

"Jack's not mad at you," She explained, feeling like she was talking to a child rather than a nine hundred plus year old alien. But sometimes we all resort back to children and just need to hear the voice of a mother. "He's just worried. He's scared, because you're too damn important and he can't imagine being without you. He doesn't want you to hurt or fear anymore. But you know Jack; He's not exactly the 'touchy-feely' type. He's more the 'let's kill some evil sons-of-bitches and raise a little hell' type."

The Doctor let out a shaky laugh at that and Martha found herself smiling. "He's just spinning his wheels right now because he's scared, and he doesn't know how to handle that." As carefully as possible, Martha wrapped her arm around the Doctor's shoulders, pulling him close. "We're all scared."

"Don't be." The Doctor said, trying to get back a little bit of his bravado. "I'll be f-fine."

Martha laughed and pressed her lips to his temple. She remembered a time, back on the TARDIS, when this was all she wanted: to be lying so close to the Doctor, to have her arms wrapped around him, to kiss him (even if it was just on the head). But back then it would have been him protecting her, comforting her after a bad day with the Daleks or a run-in with some hostile natives. She rather preferred it that way. But there was no point sitting there thinking about how their roles had switched.

"Come here." Martha swung her legs up onto the bed and leaned backwards into the warm pillows. The Doctor leaned back with her, almost seeming to melt into her hold. Martha yawned pointedly. "Well, it's two in the morning in my eyes." She began mid yawn. "Which means it's just a little after twelve. Think you could try getting some sleep?"

She asked it casually, but almost instantly after saying the words she felt the Doctor stiffen. He slowly curled closer to her, as if hoping the movement wouldn't be noticed. "Martha, I c-can't. He d-didn't say –"

"Shh." Martha brushed her hand over his head soothingly, flattening his unruly hair. "It's okay Doctor, you don't have to. You can sleep when you're ready." They fell into a comfortable silence in which the Doctor cautiously rolled onto his good side, letting Martha's arm stay wrapped around his shoulder. Martha decided to take up a new tactic as she gently played with a few strands of his hair. "How about you tell me all about what you and Donna got up to when I left after Messaline." She suggested.

The Doctor hesitated for a moment as he played the name over in his head. Donna. Oh, Donna. He missed his best friend, now more than ever. She and Martha had always gotten along so well. He would have liked to have had them both here. And Rose…

To stop himself from going down that line, the Doctor cleared his throat softly and began to talk. He told Martha all about meeting Agatha Christie and the 1920s murder mystery dinner party they'd all been thrown into. By the time he got to the uncovering of the murdered, the deep, gentle breaths hitting his forehead told him Martha had fallen asleep. He could have stopped then, but he didn't. He went on to talk about the mysterious woman he met in the Library and how he of all people had lost his voice on Midnight. Something about telling the stories, just recounting the little minor details that didn't really matter but mattered so greatly to him, gave him an overwhelming sense of calmness. Those were good times, times when he laughed and ran about and looked at the world through the eyes of an optimist. And maybe – just maybe – if he kept talking about those times he could return to them.

**PAGE BREAK **

Jack rolled his shoulders as he waited for the coffee to finish brewing. Even though he wouldn't admit it, yes, he was tired, but he'd be damned if he went to sleep and the Doctor didn't. Especially since there was still so much to do.

The rest of the Hub was empty. Ianto must have left some time after bringing Jack the belt of the Doctor (Jack didn't miss the fact that Ianto hadn't said goodbye, but his coat was gone). And Gwen was still God knows where, which left just the Doctor, Jack, and Martha. Just like the good old times. Although – Jack thought with a snort – that was probably the second worst time ever, coming after this one.

When the coffee finished he poured it into a fresh mug and trudged back to his office, back to the Rift activity reports scattered all over the desk and floor. At least now he had a time reference: Roughly two years ago. He began picking up the pieces that had fallen on the floor, tossing aside the ones that were too old or too recent. That left him with a pretty manageable pile of reports dating around 2006/2007.

Two years? He still couldn't wrap his head around that. Two years ago Tosh and Owen had been alive. Not just around *coughOwencough* but _alive._ Two years ago Gwen hadn't even been part of Torchwood. Hell, two years ago the Doctor and Martha were just meeting. Then Jack realized that, madly, the Doctor had been trapped in that cellar, tortured and alone, at the same time he and Jack had been reunited and accidentally went off to visit 'Utopia'. That whole time the Doctor had been stuck right where Jack had just left.

He went out to one of the computers in the main room and pulled up a history of Torchwood Three's activities, from Weevil encounters to the collection of random Rift junk, and began to cross reference them with the Rift spikes. He had only gotten through the first four pages however when he heard the familiar grinding of the invisible lift moving downwards.

Nerves on edge, Jack stood and slowly made his way towards the platform, waiting for the lift to stop and reveal whoever it was carrying. Maybe it was just Ianto coming back because he forgot his…whatever. Jack's mind wasn't completely working; the combination of caffeine and the early morning hour not working well together.

The lift finally came to a halt and out stepped Gwen carrying a plastic take-out bag. She jumped when she saw Jack appear right in front of her, standing as if ready for a fight. "Jesus, Jack!" She hissed. "You just trying to terrify me?"

She pushed passed him and made her way to the center of the Hub, depositing the take-out bag on one of the tables as she said over her shoulder, "Knew you'd still be up obsessing over all of this. Not going to sleep after all that now, are you? Probably haven't eaten either, have you, you great idiot? So I took the liberty. Orange chicken or beef and broccoli?"

"Where the _hell_ have you been?" Jack finally managed to growl.

Gwen paused in taking out the white Chinese to-go containers. "What are you talking about, Jack? I told you. I was meeting up with Andy, looking up the records on that house to try and find out who the owner is."

Jack could have kicked himself. Not only had he not thought about looking up the house's owner, but he'd also completely forgotten Gwen shouting that information to him as she ran out of the Hub earlier, right after they'd brought the Doctor in. Wow, his memory was screwed up today.

But a sudden surge of hope went through him at her words. "Any luck?" He asked desperately.

Gwen signed and opened up one of the containers, sniffing at its contents. "Well, it's a little hard to find the owner of a house when the house isn't even there in the first place." Jack frowned. "According to records of that area that house doesn't exist. There's nothing on that plot. So I was thinking –"

"A perception filter." Jack finished for her, the realization almost physically slamming into him.

"And a pretty strong one, too, in order to trick the both of us."

"And the Doctor." Jack added. "Even he thought he was really stuck in a cellar."

Gwen shrugged. "Not necessarily. The records say that there _had _actually been a house there that it burned down in the seventies. But even if it had, that stone cellar would have survived the flames."

"So the Doctor was stuck in a cellar _not _under the house _we _saw…" Jack tried to summarize. "So…What's really there? What would it not have wanted us to see?"

"I don't know." Gwen admitted as she stabbed at the contents of her to-go box with a plastic fork. "But my guess is it's a ship of some sort. That thing is obviously not from earth, and it could have been vanishing through the ceiling _into _its ship to recover or something."

Jack seemed to have been punched in the stomach, considering how he was suddenly having trouble breathing. How could he have _possibly_ forgotten…_again_?

"Gwen, tell me exactly what happened in that cellar."

She raised her eyebrows at him, surprised by his abrupt change of tone. When she didn't immediately respond Jack grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly.

"Quickly, Gwen, this is important! What happened to that guy – that _thing_ – in the basement?"

"I – What do you mean? You were there?" Suddenly she looked scared. "I mean, you – you felt it too, right? Jack?"

Jack had released her and sat down heavily in on of the chairs around the table. Gwen looked around the Hub cautiously to see if anyone else was around before her eyes fell back on Jack. "Jack, why are you asking me that?"

"Because," Jack answered with a sigh, scared himself about what he was about to say. "I don't remember it, Gwen. I don't remember anything before getting the Doctor out."

**TBC**

****_A/N Remember how quickly this chapter was posted? You should keep leaving me reviews so I stay motivated to write more. *hint hint*_


	7. Chapter 7

Gwen was frozen for a moment while she tried to find her voice. "What? What do you mean you don't remember? Jack. You were there. You were with me the whole time, what happened?"

"I don't know!" Jack growled with frustration. "And every time I stop thinking about it I forget all over again." He slammed his hand down on the table and immediately regretted it, both for the pain now throbbing through his fist and the fact that the noise probably reached the medical bay.

"Okay, just – just calm down." Gwen tried to rationalize. "What's the last thing you remember before finding the Doctor?"

Jack thought hard, kneading the palms of his hands into his forehead. "I remember…I remember getting the message on the computer. I remember driving to the house, or whatever it really is, and standing outside the cellar and hearing –" He swallowed heavily as he remembered the thick _thud_ sound the Doctor's head made when it hit the stone wall and the shouting that had followed – "Then I remember opening the cellar door and…" He made a vague gesture with his hand. "And then the Doctor's waking up, and it's just you, me, and him down there."

"You don't remember the man?"

He pounded his head harder, not caring about the headache he was beginning to get. "No…no, I _do _remember a man," Jack said uncertainly. Then he let out another growl. "But that's it! I don't know what happened to him, where he went… And Ianto said _you_ said something about a blue light coming out of the body, and just now something about how it vanished through the ceiling, but according to _my_ memory circuit that's a load of crap, except for that my own crap doesn't make any sense either!" He felt like tearing the hairs out of the top of his head and grinding his teeth down to stumps if that would just help him to remember.

"So…so, you don't remember the feeling then?" Gwen asked uncertainly, sinking into a chair of her own. Looking into her eyes, Jack could tell she was desperate for him to confirm what she'd felt and seen. He could also see the raw fear she was trying to hide and felt a shiver run up his spine.

"I was scared." He realized. "More scared then I'd ever been in my entire life. But I'd just found my best friend chained to a wall, so who wouldn't have been?" He tried to rationalize.

Gwen sighed. "I'm sorry, Jack, but I don't think that was the cause."

"What do you mean? You think I was scared of that – that – whatever it was?" Jack snorted as if to say that the thought was ridiculous, but even he wasn't entirely convinced.

One of Gwen's eyebrows arched up. "Yes, that's exactly what I think." She said bluntly. "Because that's exactly what happened to me. And no offence to him, but I'm not quite close enough to the Doctor for that to be the cause for me, too."

Jack put his head in his hands and briefly wished he'd taken Martha's instructions to go to bed. His headache was escalating with each second and he wasn't liking this conversation. "Okay, so, let's jog my memory. Step-by-step, what happened after we entered the cellar?"

"Well," Gwen began. "We pulled open the cellar doors and you jumped down first. All we could see was the man's back as he was holding the Doctor by the neck. You shouted something and he turned around and…his eyes –"

"Stop!"

Both Jack and Gwen jumped at the new voice, having thought they were alone. Jack spun around in the direction of the familiar voice. "Doctor! What the hell are you doing?"

The Doctor was standing in the doorway leading towards the medical bay, clinging onto the doorframe desperately for support. With a quick shove he lunged towards the stairs, grabbing at the metal railing and giving a shout of pain as he tried making his heavily wrapped legs move.

"Jesus," Jack muttered as he rushed forward. He jumped down the stairs and took the Doctor under the arms, twisting him around so he could sit on the steps. The Doctor groaned again as his injuries protested to the movement and there was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead from the effort of getting to the main hub. "Doc, you're supposed to be _resting_." Jack scolded.

The Doctor gave a breathless laugh "Yeah, and so are you. Seems like neither of us are listening to Doctor Martha's orders tonight." He tried to turn around, wincing, trying to look for Gwen. "You have to stop." He ground out between clenched teeth, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

Gwen stepped forward so she could hear him better. Her eyebrows were knitted together in confusion, mirroring Jack's. "Stop what?"

"We'll stop talking about it if it's bothering you." Jack supplied quickly, but the Doctor was shaking his head.

"No. No. You have to remember." He said breathlessly. "You have to stop talking about him so you can remember."

Jack exchanged a puzzled look with Gwen. "Doctor," He said slowly. "You're not making sense. You need to be resting. Your legs are broken, how'd you even get out here!"

The Doctor ignored him. "Gwen, what are all the lyrics to _Rocket Man_? It's important, I swear."

"Umm…" Gwen looked completely taken aback. "I-I don't know, I'm not really an Elton John fan…"

The Doctor made a surprised face. "Really? Shameful! Elton's such a dear. AH!" He clutched at his leg, which he'd been trying to pull up the steps but had accidentally rammed it into the side instead. He wasn't used to moving them again just yet. "Okay, then what you need to do is look up the lyrics, memorize them, and then come recite them to me, okay? Quickly! Go Gwen."

After shooting a _how-the-hell-is-this-important _look at her boss, Gwen hurried off to one of the computers, pulling up a search engine. Jack turned back to the Doctor, an eyebrow raised, asking the same question Gwen had just silently asked him. The Doctor laughed shortly.

"Just had to get her thinking about something else." He answered the look. "Anything else really, and _Rocket Man_'s been stuck in my head for the last millennia."

"Why?"

"It's a great song. Come on, don't tell me you're not an Elton fan as well."

"No, Doctor, I mean, why can't she think about it?"

The Doctor's face fell instantly. Jack noticed he was beginning to shake again, even if it was just a tiny tremor, almost undetectable. "Because that's how _he _works." The Doctor's voice cracked ever-so-slightly when he mentioned _him_.

"It's alright, Doc. You don't have to talk about him if you don't want to."

"No, y-you should know anyway. N-not talking about him is n-not going to make it better any f-faster." Damn, the stutter was back. The Doctor closed his eyes, and when he opened them Jack was startled to see that they looked darker somehow, even more haunted then before. The Doctor took a steadying breath before starting, his voice low and slow as he tried to keep the ineffable fear at bay.

"The creature's called a Metmorsus. They're from a small planet in the Calypsian Galaxy, a system known for raging vicious wars and rivalries between the civilizations. Thankfully they've yet to reach out into other galaxies, so it's pretty contained. But," The Doctor hesitated slightly. "But the Metmorsi… they were born of the fear and pain of war, and that sort of thing has an effect on a being."

Jack remembered when he'd first met the Doctor all those years ago, how he'd said he'd been 'born of the Time War'. Obviously he had meant that one body, and thankfully Rose had been helping him through it, but he kind of had an idea of what the Doctor was trying to say. Or at least he thought.

"It's what they thrive off of." The Doctor continued with a hint of venom in his quiet voice. "Pain and terror. For a while it was enough just feeding off the results of war, but then they started getting hungrier, to the point where they had to start causing it just to satisfy themselves."

_Nevermind, _Jack thought. That was definitely not the direction he had been expecting the Doctor to take.

The Doctor swallowed. "They – they _need_ the fear. Not just for entertainment, although there is that too, but to survive. It's part of their basic genetic build. You c-can't really blame them for it then,"

"Just watch me." Jack growled.

"But that's part of their defense. They have minor psychic abilities, just enough to get into your head and trigger the fear sensors of your brain, making you experience a rush of crippling terror just by looking at them. And then they make you forget about them…but not what you just felt. Because it's more terrifying to be afraid and not know _why._"

Jack shivered. He believed that theory, too, because he was experiencing it right now. "So why does that mean we can't think about it?"

The Doctor sighed. "It's like…it's like trying to remember a dream after you wake up. The more you think about it, the more you try to piece it together, the faster the images seem to slip through your fingers. It's like trying to hold water in the palm of you hand. You've just spent the whole day trying to figure out what that thing was in the cellar, and now you've found that you can't even_ remember _it."

"So how come Gwen can?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Maybe she's been focusing on something else ever since." He suggested.

The house, Jack realized. Gwen must have been too focused on the house and finding its owner to think about _what_ the man _was._ "So then why are you telling me this now if I'm just going to forget again?"

"No, it doesn't work like that." The Doctor said, shaking his head. "If I _tell_ you, you'll remember, but it you _experience _it, you'll forget."

"So how come you remember?" Jack asked carefully.

A shadow passed over the Doctor's features. "Two years isn't something you forget easily." He answered darkly. "But someday I will. The fear it makes you feel is like a drug: eventually it'll run its course and burn out of your system, and the longer you're exposed to it the stronger it is and the longer it lasts. You only saw him for a second, that's why you're forgetting so quickly. Since I was there so long it'll take a while for it to completely leave me, and with it it'll take the memory. And that's the _really_ scary part." His eyes were suddenly very far away and seemed almost black, and his voice had taken on a heavy tone. "One day, I'll wake up with all these scars and all this pain, and I'll have no idea why."

**TBC**

_A/N Shorter chapter for you guys, but now you know what that _thing_ was….or is._

_Also, I've been on spring break this last week and a half (hence all the updates) but next week I'm back in University and have midterms, so it might be a while before the next chapter is up. Just apologizing in advance. Hopefully you can forgive me in advance. Have you ever tried writing while guilty? It's not pretty…_


	8. Chapter 8

After a while Jack was finally able to talk the Doctor into going back to bed. The Time Lord tried to pull himself up on the railing, his eyes still haunted and distant, and hissed as his ankles punished him for it. Jack helped him hobble back to the medical bay, one arm wrapped supportively around his waist. Martha was curled up on her side on what had been the Doctors bed with her arm still thrown across the pillow as if hugging an invisible body. Jack lowered the Doctor onto the bed beside it, trying not to wake her. There were tears in his eyes from the exertion of simply walking across the Hub, but at least they seemed clearer, more in the here-and-now than on the horrible past and the equally horrifying thing that is to come.

Amnesia is no day at the parade. Especially if you're aware of the memories you're lacking, or have to deal with the aftereffects of what caused it without knowing why or how they happened. For Jack, he wasn't concerned. He wouldn't mind eventually forgetting that feeling, that overwhelming sense of terror he'd felt at the sight of that thing, the Metmorsus, and now he wouldn't forget what it was since he'd been told. But the Doctor… The Doctor had done many things in his life, but the one thing he refused to allow himself to do was forget. Forget the Time War. Forget Rose. And now he was staring down the barrel of that gun, and he seemed _terrified._

Jack wasn't fooling himself; eventually the Doctor would leave. He will heal – he always does – and he'll take off, back to the stars. He imagined the traveler missed them and wondered when was the last time he'd seen his beloved stars. But the point remained, he wasn't going to invite Jack. That much was certain. Jack wasn't bitter about it anymore though, he had a life here now and people he had to protect, but he didn't like the idea of the Doctor being alone after all this. Especially if he's alone that fateful day he wakes up to two years of empty memories.

Martha made a small noise as the shifting in the bed next to her woke her, looking around with confusion and sleep heavy in her eyes. "Doctor?" She asked groggily.

"Your patient was trying to run away on you." Jack grinned.

"Doctor." Martha scolded, but the sleep in her voice didn't exactly make her sound threatening. "Your legs…" Her sentence trailed away as she closed her eyes once more. The Doctor and Jack exchanged a humored look as Martha fell back asleep instantly.

"I guess she's trying to lead by example." Said Jack as the Doctor lifted his legs carefully onto the bed and gently lowered himself down into the pillows. Even just that small trip into the main Hub had been enough to completely annihilate any energy he'd had before, which hadn't been much. His head was spinning, pounding, and the comfort of the mattress and warmth of the blankets were too devilishly tempting. Already, he had to fight just to stay awake. But then again, he was always doing that.

"_Try_ to sleep." Jack continued. "Please, for me. Promise?"

The Doctor nodded his head slightly, but knew that, with that one simple motion, he was lying to Jack one more time.

* * *

><p>The Doctor lay in bed hours later, staring at the white piping criss-crossing the ceiling. Martha was still out cold. Her gentle breathing was just loud enough for the Doctor to hear, and he set all his concentration on it, counting. One, two, three…<p>

_CRACK! _

"_Ahhh!...F-f-four." _

He balled his hands into fists, the nails biting painfully into the skin of his palms. This pain was good; It was present, now, and he himself was applying it. And more importantly, it dragged him back from the memories drowning him.

_The searing water entered his mouth and he forced himself not to gasp in surprise as some managed to trickle down him windpipe. He struggled, panicking. His __r__espiratory_ _bypass system kicked into gear and he felt himself relax slightly as his lungs were relieved of their struggles. But then he realized the water: it was boiling! Like flames licking at his face and the inside of his mouth. He wanted to scream, but when he opened his mouth the liquid fire rushed in like a tidal wave. He choked. His body spasmed as he tried to expel the water from his lungs, but surrounded by it there was nowhere for the expel to go. _

_After a century he felt the hand entangled in his overgrown hair that had been holding him down suddenly drag him upwards. He sputtered as he was freed from the scorching water. The cold air for the cellar felt like angle kisses on the hot skin of his face. He coughed terribly, water flying from his lungs. He gulped in the cold air as if it was a gift from Rassilon, but its coolness felt sharp on the sensitive lining of his throat. He just had enough time to drag in a few desperate breaths before the fingers pulling on his hair shoved him down again, back into the inferno of hell-water. _

The Doctor gasped as desperately as he had that night. Somewhere lost in the memory he'd forgotten to keep breathing. His eyes had slid shut and he had fallen dangerously close to sleep. Shifting, the Doctor ground his shoulder into the mattress, dragging it up and down. His broken collar bone roared in protest and the gashes along his back hissed as the sensitive skin around them were bothered by the rough pressure. The pain sent a bolt of lightening through his system and suddenly he was wide awake again.

He couldn't fall asleep. The pain distracted him. The memories pestered him. And the threat of the inevitable punishment encouraged him to continue staring at the ceiling, creating patterns and mazes out of the pipes and envisioning where the stars would be if he were laying outside in the red grass, back on Gallifrey.

* * *

><p>A couple more hours later the Doctor heard the harsh melody of beeps interrupt the silence of the room. <em>A mobile,<em> the Doctor realized. Next to him was a groan as Martha was drawn back to the land of the conscious. The Doctor quickly closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep, but tilted his head in Martha's direction, watching carefully through his long eyelashes as she lifted herself onto her elbows, looking around confusedly. She seemed to find the source of the disturbance and began digging through her jean pockets. She pulled out the offending mobile, squinted at the screen, and answered it sleepily.

"Hello?...Yeah….No, he's doesn't….Yeah…working on it….I don't know…Okay, I will….Love you, too."

She hung up and dropped the phone on the table beside the bed, which was still littered with bandages and thick sheets of cotton-swab. Another soft groan as she stretched and looked around the room. The Doctor shut his eyes completely, trying to regulate his breathing. He heard her bed shift and the quiet padding of her feet as she walked closer. He focused on slowing his breath, but at the same time had to continue fighting off the sleep that was now taking advantage of his position.

Something touched his shoulder and he jumped with genuine surprise that conveniently added to his act. "Sorry." Martha whispered sincerely. "I'm sorry I have to wake you, but I need to check your bandages."

The Doctor nodded and pulled himself into a sitting position. His ribs, at least, weren't aggravating him quite as much anymore, and he could feel where the cuts along his back and arms had began to scar over, healing themselves quickly.

Martha moved around the side of the bed so she could get a better view of the gash on the back of his head. As she began peeling away the bandages she asked, "So how'd you sleep?"

"Okay, I suppose." The Doctor lied again. How many times had he already done that just since being rescued? More than Martha or Jack deserved, that's for sure.

Martha had reached the end of the bandage and was now inspecting the stitched-up cut. She made an impressed noise through her nose. "That's healing up surprisingly fast."

"Time Lord." The Doctor reminded her with a groan as she pressed her finger to the skin around the cut, testing it for inflammation. "Sorry." She said again and moved on to check his ribs. There was still quite a bit of bruising, but those, too, were looking much better.

"So why didn't you want to cast your leg last night?" Martha asked as she came down to his legs, not checking them but just considering them with crossed arms and a contemplative face.

"There's no point, really." The Doctor began. "It'd just limit my mobility too much for my liking, and the bones should be healing pretty soon anyway, so you would just have to take it off in a couple days."

Martha laughed lightly. "Right. Time Lord." She paused for a moment while she considered him. "Though I doubt that little excursion of yours last night helped heal them much." She added disapprovingly.

The Doctor flashed her a guilty look that made her smile. "So you were actually aware when you 'woke up'."

"Night shifts." She said as if that were an explanation. "I've done entire procedures half-conscious and sleep deprived."

"Wow, that gives me so much confidence and comfort in your care." He joked with another cheeky grin.

"It should! And you're a horrible liar, by the way."

"Sorry?"

"You didn't sleep at all, did you?" The Doctor didn't respond, which seemed to be enough of an answer for her. "Doctor, you _know_ it's important that you rest –"

"I am resting." He tried to defend himself.

"And by resting I mean sleeping." She fixed him with a disapproving stare. "Your eyes are dry and red. Your right eyelid is twitching, and your hands are still shaking. And, judging from how raspy your voice sounds, your mouth is dry as sandpaper. You're exhausted and – " She grabbed his wrist suddenly. The Doctor tried to pull away, but she held him fast, her fingers pressed against the inside of the wrist. "Yep, dehydrated, judging by the fever you're trying to hid and your elevated resting heart rate, even for you. You're a doctor – or, well, you know, something like that – you know these signs and their causes. And you know what you need to do to fix them."

The Doctor looked down as she rattled off the list of his offences. When she finished he finally admitted, "I can't sleep, Martha. I can't –" He swallowed. "I can't close my eyes, or I…"

Martha seemed to understand what he was trying to say. She sat down on the bed next to him and placed a hand comfortingly on his arm. "Then let us give you a mild sedative. Just enough to give you a dreamless –"

"No."

"But Doctor,"

"I told you, Martha, no drugs. No needles." His voice took on a dangerous tone as he tried, yet again, to make her accept his request.

Martha sighed heavily. "Not even a fluid IV to help hydrate you?"

"No. Needles."

"Fine!" Martha exclaimed. She immediately took on a new tactic since her previous one wasn't getting her anywhere, raising her voice and throwing up her hands, hoping that if he thought she was mad he'd give in. She hated exploiting his vulnerability right now, but she had to make he see light. Besides, this was getting _damn_ frustrating. "Be stubborn! Don't help yourself out! You want to suffer, that's fine. But just think about how selfish you're being for not letting us help you!"

Martha had never seen the Doctor look at her like that. What had been the Doctor's award-winning stubborn look melted into a mask of absolute surprise punctured by flickers of fear and panic. Guilt suddenly hit her like a speeding train when she saw the Doctor's hands shaking as they grasped, white-knuckled, at the covers. And even more so when he opened his mouth to speak.

"I'm s-sorry, M-martha. I-I…"

"I hope I'm not interrupting something…?" Both the Doctor and Martha swiveled around to face the door at Jack's hesitant voice. He was standing in the doorway, leaning in as if wondering if that was really the exactly place he wanted to be. The Doctor guessed he decided no – and he didn't blame him, he didn't want to be there either – because when no one responded he said, "Breakfast run. Anyone want anything?"

The Doctor lit up as an idea, and a _harsh_ craving, suddenly overtook him. "Banana shake?" He asked excitedly.

Jack laughed and mumbled something about the Doctor being "bananas for bananas", opting for the less innuendo-filled comment this early in the morning. Did they even serve banana shakes? Anywhere? But he nodded all the same. "Alright, Doc, I'll get you your banana fix. Martha?"

"Coffee." She said quickly. "Lots of."

"Rough night?"

"Rough day, I calling it now." Martha replied with another stern look towards the Doctor. The Doctor, who had relaxed now that Jack and the promise of a good old fashion banana smoothie had entered the room, gave her an apologetic look back.

"Look, the shake will help with both the hydration _and_ as a food source that won't upset my stomach. Plus the added bonus of the potassium, which will solve the eye twitching. Besides, bananas are _good_!"

Martha rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her lips now. "Okay, fine, get the stubborn prat his smoothie." She caved, knowing the Doctor's tenacity would far outstrip her own at this early morning hour. But the war was hardly over, despite this battle being lost. The Doctor would get his proper treatment even if she had to force him into it.

**TBC**

_A/N Final del capítulo ocho. With a bit of foreshadowing thrown in there to spice it all up. I know things have been kind of slowing down these last few chapters, but never fear! I enjoy beating up the Doctor far to much for him to be out of the woods just yet. Next chapter, s***'s gonna start going down._


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N I subconsciously started calling this chapter the _Tea Cup Massacre _when I was writing it, and even though I don't usually make chapter titles I quite liked this one. So here you go, Chapter 9: The Tea Cup Massacre. _

The next few days passed in basically the same succession: Martha or Jack would try to convince the Doctor to sleep, and the Doctor wouldn't, Martha or Jack would try to convince the Doctor to take some drugs, and the Doctor wouldn't. But despite his stubbornness against the two things that would help him the most, the Doctor _was _healing. The stitches had been removed from the back of his head and the gash had become a pretty impressive scar concealed conveniently by his wild hair, which Martha had also cut at his request. The various bruises and cuts along his body had also healed, some leaving behind souvenirs while others vanished completely. Even the bones in his ankles, to Martha's surprise, were melding together and mending faster than anyone had expected.

"I told you," The Doctor said with a sniff of his slowly returning confidence. "Time Lord. Just needed some fresh air, little bit of potassium" (The Doctor had had about a whole tree's worth of bananas in the last few days alone) "to kick-start those old blood cells biogenes back into action."

The bandages were removed and the Doctor was able to walk around again, though he still felt wobbly and weak, resorting to having to grab onto table tops and chair backs to navigate the room. Jack had taken to calling him Bambi, but even he knew this weakness wasn't going to last long at all, and soon the Time Lord would go gallivanting back to God knows where, straight into even more trouble.

"Not likely," The Doctor admitted after Jack voiced this concern, poorly concealed as a joke. "I'm kind of box-less at the moment, if you haven't noticed." He tried to say it casually, but the deep-seeded sadness that had made a home in him since losing his beloved blue box still managed to creep into his voice.

To be honest, though, Jack _hadn't _noticed. He'd been so preoccupied with making sure the Doctor was okay and tracking down any leads on that Met…thing, he'd completely forgotten about that magical phone box. "Do you know where it could be?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Haven't a clue." He was still trying to sound casual, and even tried to throw a little bit of energy into the words to make Jack happy – The ex Time Agent apparently liked it when he seemed energetic, though Rassilon knows the energy's all for looks and not actually there – but Jack didn't seem to buy it.

"We'll find her, Doc. Don't worry." The Doctor didn't respond to this. He had accepted a long time ago that he might never see his one last connection to Gallifrey again.

But none-the-less, Jack and Martha still worried. The Doctor wasn't one to stay in the same place for too long, despite the lack of his preferred mode of transportation. And one morning Martha thought her nightmare had finally come true…

She walked into what had become the Doctor's room early that morning, carrying the two cups of tea she always did. Routine, she knew, is something you have to support in trauma and shock victims, and so they had fallen into a simple, basic schedule: She would bring him tea in the morning while he either pretended to be asleep or gave up entirely and outrightly sit there staring at the ceiling. She would either 'wake' him or chastise him, respectively, or both depending on his condition, and then check over his injuries.

But this morning, Martha walked in, taking a sip of her own scalding tea and almost dropping the Doctor's right afterwards. His bed was empty and roughly made, and there was no one else in the room. She spun around, slopping tea over her hand and onto the ground. The door in had been open, she just realized, but he hadn't been wandering around the main hub like he'd taken a habit of doing lately out of boredom. If he wasn't in the room and he wasn't in the hub…Had he left? Or worse – Martha felt her face actually blanch – had he somehow been taken? The Metmorsus was still out there, according to the Doctor's hints, and maybe there was some way –

The door creaked as it was pushed open further and Martha spun around, finally dropping one of the mugs in her shock. "Careful! What was that for?"

"Doctor!" Martha said surprisingly breathlessly. "You terrified me."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed, a little dent forming between his eyebrows. He had become extremely sensitive to people being scared, either worrying for his own sake or theirs because he knew how it felt, Martha didn't know. But she felt guilty for saying it now. "Really, how so?" The Doctor asked seriously.

"Nothing." Martha tried to brush it off. "I was…just surprised…you weren't in here." But now, judging by his clean, dripping hair, fresh clothes, and the towel in hand, she could guess where he'd been. "Feeling better?"

"Much." The Doctor said, returning to his cheery self just as his leg gave out from under him and he was forced to grab onto the doorknob to hold himself up. He flashed her a guilty grin before shuffling off towards the bed and plopping down on it hard. He ran the towel over his hair, shaking and messing it up until his head resembled more of a porcupine than actual hair. Martha laughed at him.

"Did you get any sleep?"

"Yes, actually!" Martha glared at him and he shrunk away a bit. "No, actually." He corrected himself in a quieter tone. "_But _it wasn't completely in vain! Did some snooping about through the hub – hope Jack won't mind – found some things to keep me occupied. Though I do need to ask Ianto if they have a vacuum cleaner here…" His voice trailed off as he began to formulate plans in his head, which was finally beginning to work like usual again.

Martha smiled to herself as he suddenly began to ramble on about different technological things he'd discovered during his nighttime exploration of the hub, talking animatedly like a child who had had a good day at school. She checked his injuries again, flexed his ankles, and tested his reflexes while he talked before reluctantly leaving, explaining how Jack, Gwen, and Ianto had gone on a Weevil hunt and how she needed to hop to the shops really fast for some supplies. Honestly, the medical bay in Torchwood Three hadn't exactly been designed for long-term, seriously ill residents, and therefore was lacking in the amount of supplies that Martha defined as necessary. At first, the Doctor's face fell into what resembled a dog who had just been kicked before his mask was back up and he reassured his old companion that he was fine to be left alone. "Got things to do, anyway." He admitted with a forced smile.

That must have been true, for when Martha returned about an hour later it was to find the main hub in complete disarray. Bits of wire were strung across the floor and from wall to wall, older computers had been taken apart, their corpses laying across the tables, and pieces of pipe and other metal lay cut and disposed of on various surfaces. There was even a broken tea cup or two littered around the tables, some looking like deliberate chunks had been cut out of them. Martha's mouth dropped open. What the _hell_ had happened while she was gone?

She found the Doctor with half his body laying on one of the tables, his legs tucked underneath him in a swiveling chair he'd apparently stolen from Jack's office. He looked up, surprised, when Martha tripped loudly over a piece of wire on the floor, before he flashed her a grimacing grin. "Riiight, sorry about the mess. Had to improvise a bit, you see, didn't exactly have the right materials."

A soldering iron hissed hotly as Martha passed it. She looked around the room in absolute shock before she let her eyes fall back on the Doctor. "What the –"

At that exact moment, Jack and Gwen stumbled into the hub, froze, and decided to finish Martha's sentence for her. "Fuck! What happened?"

"I could ask you the same." The Doctor replied without looking up from whatever he was tinkering with, but he could _smell_ what he was talking about. Jack and Gwen were covered in dirt and mud, smeared across their faces and into their hair and stained into their clothes.

"Weevils." Jack replied simply as he jumped down to Martha and the Doctor's level. "They…like sewers."

"Lovely, Jack." Martha mumbled as he came closer and she scooted away from the stench.

He looked comically downhearted for a moment. "What, no hug? What are you doing anyway, Doctor."

"Oh, just...working." He answered vaguely. "Almost done, too. Just gotta…" There was a click and a hiss and the Doctor punched the air. "Yes! Oh, you beauty!" While his voice remained quieter than in his usual excitement, Jack and Martha exchanged a happy look at the enthusiasm coming back to the Doctor.

"So, what is it then?" Jack asked, stepping forward to get a closer look at the object in the Doctor's hands. He froze dead in his tracks. "Doctor, is that – is that a _gun_?"

The object did indeed look like a gun, but unlike any gun Jack had ever seen. It was a combination of twisted metal, wire, springs, and what resembled a vacuum nozzle, all bent together to form the L shape of a gun and expanding in the middle like a bowl.

The Doctor observed it with a frown. "Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it a gun. More like a…Generalized Unsubstanciative Negater."

"Which conveniently spells out g-u-n." Martha commented disapprovingly, her arms crossed.

"Oh, it's harmless, really. See?" The Doctor pointed the 'gun' at Jack and pulled the trigger. Both Martha and Gwen called out, Martha reaching over to try to pull Jack out of the way, none of them knowing with the 'gun' would do or if it had been properly tested before. But there was a little whirl and whine of electricity from the gun, which lit up with a flash of scarlet as it was fired.

Nothing happened. Well, nothing catastrophic happened. Jack felt like a hook had grabbed him from somewhere around the navel and pulled forward, causing him to stumble slightly. The three humans look on in surprise as the Doctor smiled. "Congratulations, Jack Harkness, you're not being possessed. Which reminds me, I really should talk to Sam and Dean about this one." He added under his breath as he observed the instrument. A frown formed on his face. "Hang on…no…no, no, no, no, no." He spun around to face the desk again, flipping through sheets of paper with quickly drawn sketches and equations. Jack and Martha frowned at each other, Martha mouthing "You okay?" and Jack shrugging with a "I feel fine."

The Doctor groaned loudly and drew their attention back to him. "Still not strong enough!" He ran his hands wildly through his hair. He looked manic, unlike they'd ever seen him before. "Gotta recalibrate it." He told them out loud. "Set the level to one hundred and fifty should do it. Just need – AH!"

He spun around too fast, his weak legs still unable to keep up with him, and the world tilted violently. His knees gave out and hit the harsh grating of the floor heavily, the rest of his body following suit. "Doctor!" Jack and Martha leapt forward as the Doctor's head struck the floor with a loud _thud_. He tried to push himself up, his eyes looking slightly glazed over and dazed, before he collapsed to the ground once more.

Jack got there first, steadying the doctor with a hand on the shoulder. But the Doctor flinched away violently, rolling over onto his back and staring up at Jack with wide brown eyes. "No." He whispered softly. "Please. D-don't be mad. I'm s-sorry I shot you."

Jack was stunned. How had he gone so quickly from being manic and confident to stuttering again, even begging? "It's alright, Doctor, no harm done, just like you said. Can I help you up now?" He asked carefully, extending a hand.

This time the Doctor took it and let Jack help in back up into the chair. The world was still spinning slightly, but it was getting better. He sniffed a bit and shook his head to clear his senses. Everything had been happening so fast and now it had slowed down, leaving the Doctor confused as to where to settle. Instead, he turned to Jack and crinkled his nose. "You reek." He stated simply.

Jack laughed. "Yeah, I really should go take a shower. You okay now?" The Doctor nodded distantly. Jack patted him gently on the shoulder before turning to Martha, giving her a meaningful look. _Watch him. _Martha nodded, too. "Alright, see you in a few." Jack bounded off to the showers, sloping mud everywhere with each step. Ianto was _not _going to be happy with the state of this place when he got back.

The Doctor sat in stunned silence for a moment before snapping out of it and swiveling the chair back to face the work table. He picked up the 'gun' and a screwdriver – a plain, old, regular, boring screwdriver – and began tinkering with its settings again, tightening wires and readjusting them. Martha watched apprehensively before pulling up a chair and plopping down beside him. "You sure you still want to be making that gun?" She asked hesitantly.

The Doctor took a minute to respond. "It's not really a gun, Martha."

"I thought you didn't like weapons." She asked after another bout of silence, wondering what exactly in her Doctor had changed.

He laughed a bit at that. "Anything can be a weapon, Martha. Words even. Words are the greatest weapons we have, anyway, besides books."

He continued tinkering, pulling out a length of wire and using the tip of the screwdriver to peel away the protective plastic layer. "Here, hold this." He passed Martha one end of the wire, carefully holding onto the bare side with a pair of tongs. Martha took it cautiously. "So what exactly will this gun – sorry, weapon (She didn't think that sounded much better) do?"

The Doctor tilted his head to inspect his adjustments before answering. "It's sort of like a vacuum cleaner. You run a vacuum over the floor and it sucks up all the bad things like dirt and rocks and leaves. Well _this_ little beauty does much of the same thing, if I can get it working properly. Designed it myself, though I didn't exactly get a chance make a prototype while stuck in that cellar."

He said it so casually, but Martha could see it was still really hard for him to talk about what had happened.

"You see," He continued. "The Metmorsi aren't creatures of substance. They don't have their own form or body. They exist in the non-physical world, and if they want to be part of the physical, they have to find a host. Like possession, similar to the human idea of demons, which is _actually _where they came from in the first place.

"Now, what my Generalized Unsubstanciative Negater does – if I can get it working properly – is it latches onto the non-human elements in the body, such as alien particles that cause the possession, and suctions them out, like a vacuum." He made a slurping sound with his mouth like a kid sucking up a string of spaghetti. "Because the Metmorsus can't survive long on earth without a host, it's just not adapt to the atmosphere. So when we find out where it is and who it's possessing –"

There was a sizzling noise and the Doctor quickly dropped the instrument, retracting his hands as if they'd been burnt. "Needs more work than I thought it would, though." He mumbled.

Martha was still concerned. "So, it sucks the Metmorsus out…and then what? Where does it go? And what happens to the person it was possessing?"

"Well, hopefully," The Doctor poked at the gun, which was still too hot to touch. "When I get it working right, nothing will happen to the person, like you saw with Jack. Just a little pull and that's it. As for the Metmorsus," He poked the gun again before gingerly picking it up. "The vacuum bit should pull the foreign particles into this chamber," He indicated towards the bowl-like widening in the middle of the gun. "and lock them there, holding in the essence of the Metmorsus. Then you can do whatever you like with it after that."

That was the part Martha was worried about. She had seen a Time Lord extracting revenge before, and it had almost destroyed the entire planet. She couldn't – didn't _want _to – imagine what would happen it the Doctor followed down that path now. "And…what exactly _are _you planning to do with it once you catch it?" She asked carefully.

The Doctor peered at her from under his thick eyebrows. "Well, when I find a means, I'll probably take it back to the Calypsian Galaxy where it belongs." Martha let out a sigh of relief, which the Doctor caught. He looked down ashamedly, refusing suddenly to look at her. "I haven't changed that much, Martha. I'm still me."

Silence took a hold of them; for Martha it was one of content relief, and for the Doctor it was one of guilt. He went back to twiddling with the gun. After a few minutes Martha hit the table gently with her hands. The Doctor jumped slightly at the sudden noise, but they both chose to ignore it. "I'm going to go get some more tea." Martha said as she stood up. "Want any?"

The Doctor answered with a soft grunt and a nod, not looking up. Martha took a few steps away before turning back around, a question suddenly nagging at her. "Do the Metmorsi have names?"

Not looking up, "Yes, most of them."

Pause. "Did this one?"

The Doctor stopped working for a fraction of a second before continuing as if the hesitation had never happened. "Yes."

Martha felt guilty for asking, but she had to. The question was clawing at her insides. "What was it?"

The Doctor was silent for a moment, still staring at the instrument in his hand without really looking at it before answering with one simple word. "Sir."

* * *

><p>Martha entered the small kitchen to find Jack already there, his hair still wet and clothes fresh. A kettle was already boiling on the stove. "You read my mind." Martha beamed.<p>

Jack looked at her a little sadly, which confused her. "I bet you can't read what's on mine."

"Jack, I am _not_ playing that game with you again. It's disgusting!"

"I'm not talking about that one." Jack clarified with a flicker of a smile. "I'm talking about the Doctor."

"Oh? So…?" Martha encouraged when he paused. Jack took a deep breath, as if still debating this with himself, before saying,

"I'm going to drug him."

Martha nearly choked. "You're going to _what?_"

"I'm going to just slip it into his tea. No needles. So _technically_ we're still playing by his rules…sort of."

"Jack, have you gone in_sane_? We're trying to build his trust in us, not completely tear it to shit."

"It'll just be to put him to sleep. Martha, he's not in the right state of mind. He built a gun, for God's sake!"

"He's scared! He thinks that thing is coming back for him. He's just trying to defend himself."

"Since when does the Doctor – _our_ Doctor, the one that went through an entire year as a prisoner on the Valiant and still never turned towards violence – ever accepted the use of a gun, let alone a gun he designed? He's acting like this because he's sleep deprived and his brain is going haywire. Even you can't deny he _needs. Sleep._"

The tea kettle screamed at them that the water was ready. Martha sighed and Jack took that as her agreement. "Just a mild sedative. Just enough to knock him out for a bit, give him a dreamless sleep, let him rest a bit undisturbed. He'll probably thank us for it when he wakes up and realizes how much better he feels."

_I doubt he _will_ thank us,_ Martha thought, but she gave in. She was out of options too, and to be honest she had been considering it. "You're going to need more than a mild sedative. He's a Time Lord, you're going to need at _least _twice the dose, if not three times, to bring him down enough."

Jack dug into his pockets and pulled out a couple vials of clear liquid. "Already one step ahead of you."

Martha could already feel the guilt weighing down on her, but she shrugged it off. She could see the Doctor's exhaustion in his eyes, in every one of his movements, and knew that for his mental health just as much as his physical he _needed _to sleep. But he was just being too damn stubborn. "Alright," She agreed hesitantly. "Let's do this."

* * *

><p>As Jack reentered the main hub, two mugs in hand, he found the Doctor still hunched over his project, eyebrows knitted with intent. Jack repeated the mantra over and over in his head: <em>Right hand, right hand, it's in the right hand. No, not the left. The right hand. <em>

"How's it going?" He asked cheerily, trying to mask his own guilt behind his voice. Martha had chosen to stay in the kitchen, not wanting to be a part of this. The Doctor looked up, smiled, and then went back to work. He looked like a twelve year old trying to rebuild a motorbike in his bedroom, all excitement and none of the right tools.

"I got the suction to finally work at the right level, but now, unfortunately, it also kills the possessee, so not very good in that sense. So you won't mind if I don't try it on you again?"

"It's much appreciated." Jack set down the coffee in his _right_ hand, pushing it towards the Doctor. "I don't think you really_ need_ the caffeine at the moment, psycho, but here you go."

The Doctor flashed him a grin of thanks and downed the tea in one swift gulp. Jack watched with trepidation as the Doctor grimaced. "Hot." The Doctor gasped with a screwed up face. Then he ran his tongue over his lips, frowning. "What kind of sugar is –"

The cup fell from his hand and shattered on the floor, spilling little drops of tea. The Doctor stared in terror at the hand that had been holding the cup, which was now shaking violently. He balled it into a fist, his knuckles turning white. He blinked rapidly, taking in a few sharp breaths as he shook his head, as if warding off an annoying fly. Jack suddenly worried that the sedative had been too strong and the Doctor was just reacting to the sudden drowsiness faster than he'd expected. He inched forward, ready to catch him incase he fell to keep the Doctor from injuring himself further.

The suddenly the Doctor pushed away from the table _hard._ The chair toppled backwards, dragging the Doctor down with it, both landing on the floor heavily. "Doctor!" Jack jumped forward, trying to catch him, but the Doctor jumped away, shuffling backwards like a cornered mouse.

"W-w-what have you d-done?" The Doctor's voice sounded thick and garbled, panicked and laced with fear. He shook his head again, blinking hard. Jack tried to move forward again, cautiously this time, but the Doctor jumped up. Or rather he tried to jump up, but his legs gave way once more and he found himself clinging to the side of the desk for support, pieces of paper and discarded metal toppling to the floor. Martha came running out at the sound and covered her mouth quickly as she saw the Doctor, his eyes wide and wild with fear.

"Doctor, it's okay!" Jack was trying to say. "I gave you a little sedative to –"

"_What part of no drugs did you mishear?" _The Doctor snapped viciously, trying to move again by grabbing onto the stairs railing behind him.

"Jack!" Martha shouted at him with no real purpose. Jack glanced at her quickly before lunging forward, taking the Doctor by the shoulders and trying to steer him back to a chair before he hurt himself even more. But that was the wrong thing to do. The Doctor twisted out of his grasp, pushing Jack in the chest with more force than any of them had expected. Jack fell to the ground, the Doctor following close after as his legs continued to refuse to work for him. The Doctor scrambled away as Jack continued to try to catch his breath.

"It was in the tea, wasn't it!" The Doctor accused, looking at the broken bits of mug on the floor. "You put it in my tea – you drugged me – not you, not you too! You're supposed to be _safe_ – you're supposed to be good – but you drugged me – I _TRUSTED_ YOU!"

The last words were thrown in Jack's face with pure venom oozing from each syllable, to the point where he could taste the feeling of betrayal radiating off the Doctor's words. The Doctor suddenly curled into a ball, screwing his thumbs into his eyes and rocking backwards and forwards ever so slightly. He was shaking all over. Martha and Jack were tossed into a stunned silence so quiet they could hear the Doctor whispering into his knees, "No, no, n-not again. N-not ag-gain. I w-wont. I wont!"

They let him sit like that for a moment, both too shocked to do anything, hoping he would calm down or the drugs would set in and knock him out before he got worked up again. Then Jack inched forward carefully, slowly extending a hand to touch the Doctor's shoulder. "D-Doc?" He asked hesitantly.

The reaction was instantaneous. The Doctor jumped up, the fire in his eyes that made most beings in the universe run away, the look that had made the Daleks give him the name _The Oncoming Storm. _The full blow of this glare settled on Jack, who felt himself shrink down to the size of a toy soldier, easily crushable. "_Get away from me!" _The Doctor growled viciously.

"Doctor, I'm so sor –"

"I said _GET. AWAY!_"

It was a raw, primal scream Jack had never heard the Doctor utter. Martha jumped forward and grabbed Jack from behind, swinging him out of the way. "Just leave!" She shouted, giving him a meaningful look. _I _knew_ this was a bad idea._ Jack hesitated. The Doctor was trembling violently, barely able to keep standing, but was still watching him with a glare of full-on hatred. Martha shook her head ever-so-slightly and mouthed "Go."

And so Jack did. He spun around and fled, grabbing his WWII coat off the railing as he went, not allowing himself to think as he tripped up the steps and out of the Hub all together.

There was a moment of terrifying stillness before Martha turned around, worriedly, to face the Doctor. The petrifying look that had been in his eyes had now passed and he looked dazed, confused. He looked around the room as if only just realizing he was in it before his eyes settled on Martha. They were filled to the brim with fear and panic. "M-Martha…?" He tried to take a step forward, but his legs buckled. His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he began to collapse towards the ground again, like a limp ragdoll, a puppet cut from its strings.

**TBC**

_A/N _This _was a _long_ chapter. Sorry about that…or not sorry about that, depending on if you liked it. I felt like it was all necessary and couldn't really find a proper place to cut it off, so I hope you don't mind. There's probably only about 5 or so chapters left after this one, so we're coming to the end…but it's definitely going out with a bang…or maybe even a beating ;) Gimme a quick review on your way out if you've got time to let me know how I'm doing._


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N Cookies for whoever caught the Supernatural reference last chapter! And sorry it's been a while; I've been going through New Member process for a sorority the last couple of weeks and it's devoured my soul! This chapter is getting back to the normal chapter length; I was going to try to make it longer due to all the _**beautiful**_feedback I got about last chapter, but I like where it ended and wanted to get it out to you as soon as possible. But while I'm on the topic, thank you guys so much for all the reviews! You all rock my world! _

Jack paced along the sidewalk of the Roald Dahl Plass, his mind frantic, his heart going a hundred miles an hour, his breath reaching his lungs in sharp, painful stabs. _What have I done? What the _hell_ have I done? _He ran a shaking hand through his hair as he turned sharply on his heels and paced back along the curb again.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit. SHIT! _

It was raining hard. Jack was getting pelted by the rain, which bit and stung at his exposed skin like miniature knives. His hair was plastered to his forehead and his beloved World War II coat seemed ten times heavier with the amount of water it was absorbing. There were hardly any others in the Plass, and the few that were regarded the Time Agent with suspicious looks before bundling further into their hoodies or umbrellas and finding shelter.

Jack didn't deserve shelter. In his eyes he should be left out here to drown, to be pelted with water for so long it would wash away everything that he was and did. Until he got swept away in a tidal wave of guilt that was threatening to break over the dam.

He had drugged the Doctor. One of the two 'rules' the Doctor had given them, one of the few things he'd said about what had happened, and Jack had broken it. Broken the 'rule', broken the trust…broken the Doctor? The man had looked absolutely terrified _and_ furious all at the same time, a combination Jack had never seen – and quite honestly never wanted to see or think about again. And not only that, but he had seen the Oncoming Storm, and for the first time that storm was headed in his direction, and he didn't like it one bit. It was the most terrorizing thing he had ever seen.

No, the most terrorizing thing he'd ever seen was the Metmorsus, Jack has to remind himself. He had to keep remembering, even if the memories were what had been fed to him by Gwen and the Doctor afterwards. He has to remember because without it, he is nothing, he can _do_ nothing. Not only would he be a traitor to the Doctor, but he wouldn't be any help either.

Not that the Doctor would be wanting his help ever again. Jack had betrayed him, done one of the only two things that could have destroyed the Doctor's fragile trust in him. And now the Doctor would definitely leave. Healed or not, ready or not, the Doctor would leave, because Jack would be damned if the Doctor decided to stay with such a Jackass like himself. Jack the Jackass.

And what's more, Jack wanted to _help_ the Doctor leave. He wouldn't be able to face him now, not after what had happened, and probably not ever again. It was too much this time and there would be no fixing it. The only solution would be to give the Doctor whatever he wanted, and right now Jack was sure he just wanted a way out.

But the Doctor had none. He had no TARDIS. He had no money. He hardly even had the physical strength to get out of bed, let alone the psychological to confront the rest of the world. But of those things there was only one thing Jack could really help with, and really was the only option he would settle with.

"Jack!"

Jack was startled out of his anxious thoughts as Ianto came running up to him his dried hair becoming wetter and wetter with each step closer in the rain. Jack stopped his pacing and just stared, unable to properly form words still. Luckily Ianto spoke up first.

"What happened in there? Were we attacked? I just walked in and the Hub was a mess, practically destroyed, and the Doctor was unconscious and Martha just told me to run and find you." He was talking exceptionally faster than usual. He stared for a while at Jack, waiting for the older man to respond. "What's wrong?"

Jack snorted. "_That_, my friend, is a stellar question. What is wrong? Well, I just _fucked_ everything to _Hell, _if that's what you were wondering. Ruined everything because everything I touch turns to poison!"

"Jack?" Jack wanted to punch something, and Ianto was the closest thing. He had to control himself not to pull back his arm, ball his hands into fists, and strike at the innocent man, and he just barely managed it.

"Where's the car?" Jack demanded. When Ianto hesitated Jack practically shouted, "Where did you park the car?"

"Round the corner in the usual spot." Ianto answered with a puzzled expression. Jack instantly rushed forward, pushing Ianto aside as he began to make his way towards the place Ianto had indicated. The younger man followed hot on his heels. "Hey! Where are you going?"

"Back to the house – or whatever it was." Jack corrected himself. "There's gotta be something there, a clue, a hint, _anything_!"

"What are you looking for?"

"TARDIS' don't just disappear." He growled over his shoulder. Ianto, who was thoroughly confused by this point, stumbled along behind Jack, trying to avoid the puddles his boss so brazenly stomped through. The large Torchwood SUV was not visible and Jack spun around, holding out a stiff hand. "Give me the keys and go back inside."

"Don't you want back up?" Ianto asked surprised, but Jack hissed at him.

"I said give me the keys and go back inside, Ianto. I can't be around anyone right now." Ianto looked like he'd just been slapped in the face, but reached into his pocket nonetheless and pulled out the car keys, tossing them over to his boss before spinning around and marching back towards the Torchwood entrance. Jack watched him walk for a moment, realizing that that was just another friend – more than friend – he could possibly be losing to his own rash stupidity. He tore his eyes away and climbed into the driver's seat, slamming the key into the ignition and ripping away from the curb in enraged recklessness.

* * *

><p>The Doctor felt like his eyelids were made of lead, and decided lazily that it was not worth his energy to fight them open. It was nice, laying there on something warm and soft with his eyes shut, not worrying what was going on beyond his sealed lids, even though he knew that for some reason it was wrong to be asleep. But he wasn't really asleep, was he? He was aware, floating on the surface of consciousness but not willing to step out of the warm embrace. Was that so wrong?<p>

Yes. Yes, it was wrong, and he knew it. A stab of worry worked its way into him and he forced himself to try to move, to try to wake himself up. He tried to move his arm, but it, too, felt like lead, and even his fingers were sluggish to move. His legs wouldn't obey him either. Panic suddenly took hold. Why couldn't he move? Why was he being restrained again?

With more effort than he would have like, the Doctor pulled his eyes open slowly. The world was a fuzzy blur of white above him, and he blinked a few times, trying to clear it. Finally he could see the familiar white piping criss-crossing the ceiling. He was in Torchwood, of course, the same place he'd been for over a week. And with that realization, the memory of what had just happened came rushing back to him. Yes, of course, he could feel it now, the drug coursing through his veins, pumped at double-speed by his two hearts. But this wasn't like last time, thank Rassilon, he could feel the grogginess but not the pain. Maybe not all drugs necessarily hurt…

Hearing some sort of rustling to his right, the Doctor flopped his head to the side, feeling like he was trying to move through molasses. He blinked a few times again, his mouth moving as he tried to find his voice, before he croaked pathetically, "M-Martha?"

"Shh." Martha hushed quietly, jumping up from her chair to stand by the Doctor, putting her hand over his. The Doctor thought he would have flinched away – at first he wanted to – but he didn't seem able to do even that. "It's okay. You're okay. Just try not to move too much, the drugs might still be affecting you."

_No shit, Sherlock _The Doctor thought grudgingly as he tried to move his hand once more. Even his mind seemed unable to move like it should. He remembered what had happened all the way up through the tea cup of herbal betrayal, but directly afterwards he was at a loss. He – He had done something to Jack, but he couldn't remember. Something he should feel guilty for but couldn't quite bring himself to be. "Where's J-Jack?" He asked groggily anyways.

Martha had taken to stroking the tips of his hair, which the Doctor had to admit felt pretty nice. He let his eyes slid shut again; it was too much work keeping them open. "I don't know. He left a while ago, like you asked. But he's really, really sorry, I know that for sure."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "How long?" He asked quietly.

Martha made an uncertain noise. "About an hour, maybe an hour and a half. So not too long."

The Doctor's eyes burst open. _Not too long_? That was far, far too long. His body should have been able to counteract the drug by then. _Long _before then. "W-what happened?"

He saw Martha shrug. "You went into shock, I think. Up until about ten minutes ago you were running a pretty high fever, shaking profusely, and your heart rate was going all over the place. You've settled down now though, so you're going to be fine – Oh, no you don't."

The Doctor had tried to sit up, moving unbelievably and unacceptably slow, but Martha's hand had found his chest and was pushing him back down and he didn't have the strength to fight it. He collapsed back into the pillow, letting out a rush of air. "Have to – get up – find Jack – fix – gun."

"No, actually, you don't." Martha's voice was still quiet but firm. She kept her hand on the Doctor's chest as a sign that he was to stay down. "The drugs are still in your system, you can hurt yourself if you try moving around too much. The gun can wait, and Jack will come back in his own time. He always does."

The Doctor began to shake. "H-he d-d-drugged me." He suddenly remembered. "The o-one thing I t-told him not to d-do."

"I know." Martha was stroking his hairline again, looking so sorrowful. "It was wrong to do behind your back, but you weren't giving us much choice. We can't help you until we know what's wrong. Doctor," Now her voice was stern, demanding rather than asking for the Doctor's attention. "You _have _to tell us what happened. I know it's going to be difficult. You don't have to say every detail, just the basic overview so we have some idea of what you went through and how to best fix it."

Martha just got a blank stare from the Doctor, who looked like she was asking him the impossible. Where was he even supposed to begin? How was he even going to be able to start? Martha sighed and decided to help him out. "Let's start with the drugs, because obviously there's a story behind the reaction you just had. Did something happen that involved them? Did he drug you or…what? Please just tell me so we don't make this kind of mistake again. We're just trying to help you."

There was a long pause after her words in which the Doctor continued to just stare at her. Then finally he dropped his gaze to his hands and nodded ever-so slowly. "Okay." Was his quiet response before the opened his mouth and began to speak.

* * *

><p>Jack had driven at breakneck speeds, and quite frankly he was surprised he hadn't managed to total the car by the way he had been s recklessly driving. But by some miracle he had made it to the house without any lives lost.<p>

The house looked the same as it had the first time; old, decaying Victorian style with a wraparound porch with broken rod-iron railing. The house had once been a light blue, but the paint had been washed out and pealed away by time that it was nothing more than a faint grey. The flowers in the front yard were growing wild, as were the weeds that had taken over the walkway and surrounding flowerbeds. It was all extremely convincing, and if Jack hadn't been told it was a perception filter, even his trained mind wouldn't have believed it.

Even now when Jack looked at it, it was hard to see passed the Victorian façade. He stepped out of the car, tucking the keys in his coat pocket, and strode closer to the front doors, watching the place hard. There he could see the cellar door they had barged through, still thrown open with the chains scattered on the ground near it. He could tell that part was real, the cellar definitely existed on its own, and so he turned his attention back to the house. It took a good ten minutes for him to cut through the filter, employing every trick in his book, but it all finally paid off in the end. Layer by layer to house began to vanish before his eyes as he dug deeper into the altercation, until there was one thin wispy layer of image separating him and the one object the house had been covering up.

Jack felt as if his heart had stopped working. His lungs had stopped working. _Something_ had stopped working, because suddenly he felt like the world had frozen around him. _This _was definitely not what he had been expecting.

There, sitting in the middle of the property, looking completely bizarre now that it was the only thing around for miles besides the cellar door, stood the most beautiful thing Jack had ever encountered. The bluest box he had ever seen, with a little light at the top and the words POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX etched into the door frame.

The TARDIS. _That's _what the Metmorsus had been hiding. And this whole time, it had been standing directly over where the Doctor had been kept. They were so close, and the Doctor hadn't even known it.

Jack took a step forward, trying to decipher whether or not this, too, was a trick on the eyes. But the TARDIS remained solid, even when he stood right in front of it. Carefully, Jack reached out a hand and rested it on the cool, smooth wood. He could feel her hum at his touch, a mixture of repulsion because of what he was and relief for the Doctor's friend finally finding her. Jack could feel these two emotions twisting and battling with each other right before him until the TARDIS seemed to come to a consensus and suddenly embraced Jack in a glow of warmth.

Jack smiled, laughed even. He had hoped he would find her again soon, but the most he had allowed himself to hope for at the moment had been to find a clue, not the actual, beautiful thing. He threw his own relief towards the TARDIS, focusing all his energy on conveying that the Doctor was okay and was waiting for her.

So focused, in fact, that he didn't see the blue reflection bouncing off the TARDIS from the sun suddenly change shades, becoming bright, more electric. So focused that he didn't even notice the fact that the light was standing on its own, not a reflection or a projection at all. So focused that it wasn't until the light slammed into his back with the force of a freight train that he noticed something was wrong, but by then it was too late.

He had fallen to the ground from the impact, sitting there on his hands and knees for a long moment before he began to stand and open his eyes again. His eyes which had suddenly turned a terrifying, electric blue.

**TBC**

_A/N Dun Dun DUNNNN! Sh*t's getting real. Next chapter we'll see a lot of flashbacks, a lot of angst, and a _whole_ lot of whump! Stay tuned and review! _


	11. Chapter 11

"It was…" The Doctor licked his lips slowly, trying to figure out how best to begin and if he could even do it. "It was about two years ago in my timeline. I had just finished with Davros and the Daleks…you've done that bit, right?" He suddenly realized he'd never asked where they were in their own timelines.

When Martha nodded the Doctor cleared his throat and tried to get going again. "I had just dropped Rose and my clone back on Pete's world, and after all that jumping about – you know, alternate dimensions, the Medusa Cascade, the Shadow Proclamation – the TARDIS was running off fumes." The Doctor sighed. "So I went back a few years, not wanting to see the destruction caused by the Daleks again, and landed in Cardiff to refuel. That's when…That's when I felt it the first time." His eyes suddenly went very distant and Martha remembered a time when he'd been recounting his childhood on Gallifrey. The look of pain and lose were so similar. "It was like a shock. I could feel the disturbance in the Rift and I knew something was very, very wrong. So what did I do? I went and poked it with a stick, of course, resulting in an hour long chase and a dart to the throat…"

_Whatever had been in the dart was slow to dissipate and it took a while after the Doctor initially woke up for him to even have the energy to think properly. Everything was hazy and fluid and kept slipping away from him the harder the tried to think. Slowly, too slowly, the Doctor became aware of his own consciousness. His mind was spinning in circles, the only thing grounding him to the now being the cold, hard somethings around his wrists, pulling them up above his head and biting into his skin painfully. Then he realized the soreness in his shoulders and the way his chin lolled pathetically against chest as if his neck no longer had the muscle to hold it up. Perhaps it didn't. _

_With a groan, the Doctor tried to lift his head and open his eyes, only to discover he was unable to see. A thick band of cloth was tied tightly over his eyes. For a moment he panicked, not able to remember how he'd landed himself in this predicament in the first place. It wasn't until he heard it that he remembered. _

"_Good morning, Time Lord." An oily American voice reached his ears and the Doctor instinctively pressed himself against the wall behind him, moving his head as if trying to see the invisible being addressing him. He remembered now, and the memory seemed to slice through the drug-induced fogginess like a knife through butter. He had seen him – only glimpses, but enough to know who and what it was. _

"_Yes, I know what you are." The voice continued. "And you know what I am." _

"_Yes." The Doctor answered the unasked question. He was still trying to find the location of the voice, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere around him. "Unfortunately we haven't been properly introduced. I'm the Doctor." He tried to draw out the owner of the voice with his own faked cheeriness, but all he received was a dark chuckle. _

"_And you will learn to call me Sir." The voice responded. The Doctor tried to shrug, but the fact that his arms were drawn above his head made the movement a bit difficult. _

"_Never been much good at proper epithets, me. Much prefer solid, actual names." _

"_Like _the Doctor_." Sir teased. _

"_Yes, exactly. But now that that's out of the way," The Doctor voice changed serious now, dark and powerful. "You know it's wrong for your kind to be here. Not in this system or even this century. How did you get here?"_

_He was answered with a swift blow to the solar plexus, which he had not been able to see coming. He let out a sharp cry as it made impact and tried in vain to curl around the offended area, his diaphragm spasming as he tried to regain his breath. His head was suddenly wrenched upwards by his hair and he was forced to look unseeingly into the face of his captor, his throat becoming uncomfortably exposed. "I don't like it when others ask questions, Doctor." Sir hissed before roughly releasing him. _

_The Doctor sagged a little before regaining his footing. He coughed before forcing himself on, although he knew he would probably not get the answer he wanted. "If you're stuck here, I can help. That box is my ship; I can take you back to the Calypsian Galaxy, back to your usual hunting grounds with all the wars and oppressions you all so disgustingly love. Just give me a time stamp and a location within that star belt." _

"_But why would I want to leave here? I've finally established myself. And Earth seems like a lovely planet, what with all the pain and fear simply _radiating_ off its inhabitants. Honestly, the inhabitants of this planet are afraid of _everything_. Spiders? Atomic Bombs? _Really_?" _

_The Doctor decided to change tactics and a growl crept its way into his voice. "Earth is a level five, fully-initiated planet. According to Article 73 of the Shadow Proclamation the Metmorsi are limited to the hunting grounds of levels one through four planets only, as well as the planets within their own galaxy. If you need transport home, I am willing to offer that. If you choose to stay on earth I will not be so generous."_

_The Metmorsus snorted. "Generous? You don't even know how to kill something like me, do you Time Lord? And you're hardly in a position to negotiate. Besides, I've got myself a Time Lord, a prize beyond all prizes. I'm not nearly as generous as to be willing to let that go any time soon." _

"_Then please. I'm asking for the sake of the planet, not for myself. You can take me back, do anything you want to me, just leave this planet in peace. These people don't need more fear in their lives."_

_The Doctor could feel him suddenly step right in front of him, their bodies just inches apart. He could _feel_ the power and energy of the Metmorsus pouring off its being as it absorbed the slight essences of fear from the surrounding air. Sir laughed coolly. "You have fear in your life too, Doctor. Fear for your friends, this planet, your own guilt overriding you. And soon, you will have fear of me, though I'm sure you've already predicted that outcome by now." _

_The Doctor shivered despite himself. "Then what's with the blindfold? We both know the Metmorsi's greatest influential power is in the sight, so why make it impossible for me to see you?"_

"_Because, Doctor," Sir answered slowly. "I want you to fear me before you fear me. I want you to know that what you feel will not be some trick of the mind I'm playing on you, but real, actual, tangible fear. I want you to just hear my footsteps and shudder, so that when you do look upon me, you will know with both your hearts that there is not hope and joy and happiness in life, but only pain and fear and darkness." _

_The Doctor snorted despite the fact that he already _was_ beginning to fear for his own situation. "Why do you think I'm so happy and hopeful to begin with, _sir_?" He spat the last word. "I've already experienced pain and fear and darkness. All I _am_ is pain and fear and darkness." _

"_And so we shall add some more to your already pathetic life."_

_It happened before the Doctor could even react. Something sharp and incredibly thin was jabbed into the main vein in his neck and the Doctor felt a sudden pressure as something was shot into his bloodstream. He tried to jerk away, but by then it was too late. "What-What is that?" He asked as the needle was withdrawn from his skin and he fell heavily against the wall. _

"_Oh, _that,_" Sir said slowly. "Is a little concoction we created back on the home planet. I'm afraid you're not going to enjoy it very much, Doctor. Few do, except for those watching, of course." _

_And now the Doctor could feel it coursing through him, the drug that, with each beat of his hearts, became more and more ravenous, turning to fire and ice and raged and stabbed at his insides like shard of flaming glass. At first the Doctor gasped at the sudden, unexpected pain, sucking in sharp hisses of air through his clenched teeth, but quickly it became too much for him. The Doctor let out a terrible shout as the drug made it all the way down to his toes and up to his head. It was like every fiber of his being was being attacked. He lost himself as the pain reach his head. He could imagine a billion tiny devils jabbing at the inside of his brain with their pitchforks. He began to wonder how long the devil had been inside him. And soon he wasn't aware if he was screaming or not (he was, and quite loudly and desperately, too) for his mind slipped away, trying to protect itself from the seemingly never ending chain of pain his own blood and hearts were putting him through. If his hearts would simply stop beating, then maybe the poison would stop. If he died, maybe the pain would too…_

The Doctor paused as he tried to force away the memory. Martha was watching him sorrowfully, one hand wrapped around his and squeezing it in support. The Doctor hadn't gone into much detail about the drug, but from his eyes she could see the pain it brought and the memories he probably would never be able to banish.

"He kept me like that for a while." The Doctor continued. "I don't know how long. A day or two, or maybe weeks, months, I don't know. I couldn't even tell which way was up half the time. The other half of the time I didn't even know who I was. And every time I got close to coming out of it – every time I began to come back to reality for a short break from the pain and insanity – I heard his footsteps –" The Doctor shuddered. "And he would jab that…_needle_… into my neck again and it would all begin once more. It –" He fought back a tear as it stung his eyes, but to no avail. "It was hell, Martha. I wanted to die. I _begged _to die."

Martha didn't even know what to say. All she could do was run her thumb in circles over his hand as comfortingly as she could, afraid that if she spoke up he would be spooked out of continuing. And as painful as this probably was for him, he needed to talk about it.

"And it worked." The Doctor continued with a sigh. "I was afraid. I was…I was terrified."

_Reality danced tantalizingly out of reach. He could sense it, feel it, twirling on the edge of his fingertips. He wanted to reach out and grab it. He was so close. _

_Somewhere in that reality a door opened and slow, heavy footsteps made their way down a few sets of stairs. The Doctor shook, his shallow breath hitching in his throat. "No. P-please. No more. Just s-s-stop." He wasn't sure if he was speaking in his head or out loud. Maybe it had been spoken out loud, because a cruel, dark laugh reached his ringing ears through his blindness. _

"_You're right, Doctor, enough of the foreplay." There was a loud beep and suddenly the Doctor's bonds released him. Unprepared, the Doctor fell face first to the ground, his legs unable to hold him up after the eternity of torture. His limps shuddered with lingering pain from the invisible knives, but his mind was clearing. Clearing enough for him to register exactly how terrified he'd become of the man administering his daily dose of hell. _

_Footsteps approached. He tried to move but his muscles simply wouldn't respond to him. He groaned as a pair of hands lifted him up by the shoulders and leaned him back against the wall behind him. He wanted to reach up and tear away the blindfold but was afraid of what that would reveal. Besides, his arms were still unresponsive and felt like they were being weighed down by molten lead. _

_Something made of thick leather was being secured around his neck; he tried to flinch away but the rough hands were on his chest now, pushing him back into the wall and keeping him in place. "There we go. All good pets deserve a collar." The voice had changed; it was no longer American but sounded like it belong to someone from South Wales – which was fitting considering where they were – but the Doctor knew it was the same man, or thing. "Now it's time to see with new eyes." _

_The blindfold was ripped viciously off the Doctor's eyes. The Doctor winced at the surprising amount of light in the room, dominated by a curious glowing blue that was directed straight at him. He looked up into his captors face and immediately wished he hadn't. His previously immobile limbs leapt into action as he pressed himself further against the wall, praying he could just vanish straight through it and no longer be subjected to the feeling that was coursing through him. _

"_N-n-no." He managed to choke out between terrified gasps for air. "This is f-fake. Arif-ficial." He tried to convince his frantic brain, but he knew that was false. He had been scared before the blindfold had been ripped off, and his vision was simply adding to the established feeling. _

_The man laughed, showing off a cruel smile. "Come now, Doctor, we both know that's not true. It happened, didn't it? Just like I told you it would?" He kneeled down so he was eye level with the Doctor. The Doctor tried to look away, at anything other than those impossibly blue eyes, but Sir grabbed his chin harshly and forced him to look up. "Do you feel it, Doctor? Coursing through your veins? Nullifying you brain? Setting it haywire with unreasonable chaos? I can feel it." He inhaled deeply through his nose as if he could smell the fear. Maybe he could. "Isn't it wonderful? But…not quite as strong as I know it can get." _

_He released the Doctor's chin and stood, taking a few steps away before turning back to his captive, who was desperately trying to get a hold on himself again. Sir chuckled again as he raised in object in his hand for the Doctor to see. "Are you familiar with the human's use of dog collars, Doctor?" _

_The Doctor took a second too long to respond, resulting in a swift kick to the ribs. "Yes." He gasped out as he doubled over, trying to hold his aching side. _

"_How some of them have a small shocking devise embedded in them to keep the animal from barking or misbehaving? Like so." He pressed down on the button and instantly the Doctor felt a sharp, painful shock zap through him, originating from the collar now around his neck. He yelped in surprise and pain. Everything – every thought, every emotion, every sensation – felt horribly multiplied at the moment. _

"_Of course, I did some tweaking and twiddling, made the shock quite a bit stronger and longer lasting. What do you think?" The Doctor wasn't sure how to reply, and his mind was still trying to catch up with everything that had just happened when another shock wrecked through his body. _

"_What do you think?"_

_Shock. "It's good – ahh!" Shock. "…Sir." _

"_Very good. See? You're learning already. Now let's see if we can't teach an old dog some new tricks."_

_For the next few hours, Sir _'trained' _his new pet, forcing the Doctor to learn one demeaning 'trick' after another. He was taught certain hand motions Sir would use to say "get up" "sit down" "come" "stay", all of which were painfully reinforced as his tired body refused to act quickly enough in response to each, resulting in a sudden shock that always brought him crashing back down onto his knees. The Doctor felt pathetic. He was the Oncoming Storm, the hero of Earth, and he couldn't even force his legs to support him enough to stand. _

_Lastly, it was painfully emphasize to the Doctor that sleeping when not given permission would not be tolerated. The first night, he made that mistake, and the next morning, as the heated blade cut mercilessly through his skin, scorching and causing the skin around each gash to welt, he promised himself he would never do so again. Yet another promise he would not be able to keep. _

The Doctor didn't mean to go into such detail, but it seemed that as soon as he began speaking, the words just started tumbling out of his mouth. He couldn't stop them, but for Martha's sake he wished he could. He wished he hadn't started on this topic at all, hadn't forced his pitiful life on her kind and innocent hands, because every time he chanced a glance at her during his story he could see her wrestling to keep her horror concealed behind a bedside-manner mask. She probably thought he was just as pathetic as he felt. But she had asked to hear it, had asked to open up the floodgates, and the Doctor knew she needed to hear why he'd reacted so strongly to the sedatives so as to avoid future incidents. But the very memory of it was going to be hard for the Doctor to put into tangible words.

"The reason I reacted…like I did was because…well, that wasn't the last time he used some sort of drug on me, and none of the times were exactly…enjoyable. And this time it just…hit a little too close to memory." The Doctor found himself pausing a lot as he spoke, trying to find the best way to phrase it.

_He knew the food had tasted weird. He knew the water had had a strange tang to it. But it had been weeks since he'd been presented with any form or edible food or drink, and he was ravenous. The Doctor forced himself to drink the water slowly, not knowing how long he needed to make this little blessing last, but his desperation overrode him after the first few tentative sips and suddenly he found the glass half emptied. The food was bland – what looked and tasted like cold, lumpy oatmeal and a slice of slightly stale bread – but anything more and his starved body probably would have rejected it. _

_He kind of wished his body had. Before he knew what was happening, the food was gone and he was beginning to feel heavy and drowsy. He pushed it off as a side effect of finally having a full(ish) stomach and didn't think much of it. That was until he woke three hours later to a bucket of searing hot water being dumped on his face. He sputtered back to consciousness, feeling the last lingering trails of strong sedatives in his system, and just barely saw the harsh upwards movement of Sir's hand telling him to stand. The Doctor obeyed as quickly as he could, using the chain that had been connected to his new metal collar to help pull himself up and face the terrifying figure. In the darkness all he could see was the glowing blue eyes. _

"_You d-drugged the f-food!" The Doctor accused, horror etched into his voice as he shook water from his eyes. A fist to the side of his head came out of nowhere and caused the Doctor to reel backwards, slamming into the wall. _

"_Yes, and a good pet would have fought to obey his master." Sir's voice was dangerously low and close to a growl. "Clearly I have not drilled it into you enough. You will _**obey**_ me." And on that last word the Doctor saw something else flicker to life in the otherwise absolute darkness of the cellar: a thick column of blue flame accompanied by the sound of rushing air. A blowtorch. _

Martha's hand leapt to her mouth before she could stop it. She could tell how much pain the memory was bringing him, even from so long ago, and gave a silent sigh of relief when he decided not to go into detail on what followed. She really, _really _didn't want to hear any more, and the Doctor didn't seem like he was able to continue anyway. That was why he had been so hard-set against them using any kind of drugs, and for good reason, for he clearly was not psychologically ready to work through a fear like that just now. Martha feared that what they had just done had completely ruined every chance the Doctor had of trusting medication ever again, and she had to find a way to express that not all experiences with drugs were bad.

Unable to think of any way to state that, especially after the shock of what she had just heard, Martha continued to simply stroke the Doctor's hand. But she felt as if she had to say _something, _at least to try and pull the Doctor away from the memories he was currently swimming in. His eyes had gone glassy and distant once again, staring unseeingly at the opposite wall. Martha squeezed his hand and he looked quickly over at her, snapping out of his trance. "I'm – I'm so sorry you had to go through all this." _God, that sounded lame, _she thought. "Especially all on your own."

At this, Martha was surprised to see the corner of the Doctor's mouth twitch upwards, though not nearly in the style of a 'happy' smile. "Oh, I wasn't alone the _whole _time." He said sadly. "Sir made sure we had _guests,_ some for him and…and some for me." He stopped there but couldn't stop her face for forming within his minds eye. So many times he dreamed of that face, seeing it in his nightmares.

_Juliet Collins. Nine years old from Newport. For the Doctor's "anniversary present" from Sir, she had joined him in the cellar, chained lightly to the wall opposite the Doctor where many others had been and died before his eyes. But never anyone this young. _

_As could be expected, the girl was terrified, absolutely shaking with insuppressible fear as she was shackled to the wall by this horrifying monster now wearing her fathers face. Sir and his new form came and left without a word, leaving the Doctor to stare shocked and appalled after him before turning to the girl. She had tears streaking down her face and was looking back at the Doctor utterly stunned. He tried to imagine what he looked like: starved, bloody, scared, his shirt completely torn to uselessness and his pinstriped trousers not far behind. He tried to clear his throat quietly. "Hello there." He tried to say as kindly as he could, but his voice was still so raspy from all the screaming he'd done the night before that it came out more gravelly than he'd hoped. "My name's the Doctor." _

_Slowly he managed to coax her into talking to him, partially for her own benefit and comfort, and also a little bit for his own. It had been so long since he'd had human interaction, so long since he'd talked to someone else without the fear of Sir lingering ever-presently. _

_Days passed and Sir didn't even touch her or return. The Doctor was relieved until he noticed that neither was he feeding either of them. For the Doctor it was hardly a problem – he could and had gone weeks without food in the past and survived, although it wasn't comfortable by any stretch of the imagination – but the young girl would never make it that long. Each day she looked more and more pale, thin, and wasted. Her eyes seemed suddenly sunken and once again guilt gripped the Doctor's heart like an iron vice, even though there was nothing he could do. He didn't even have his own food to give to her. _

_Until after about eight days. The girl looked like she was cowering on Death's porch, no longer able to harness the energy to talk to him or even cry to herself. The Doctor had allowed himself to fall into a semi-doze, his eyes just open enough to watch the dying girl but his mind partially shut down. The door to the cellar burst open suddenly and the Doctor jumped out of his half-sleep. The girl, on the other hand, simply shifted her sunken eyes towards the bright light, curling in on herself even more. Sir walked casually and slowly down the steps, taking his time, until he stood directly over the Doctor. The Doctor waited for it, the slight twitch of the hand moving upwards, and when he saw it he quickly moved to his feet, wincing as his legs tingled as they woke up. Sir held something behind his back and was now watching the Doctor with a cruel glint in his eye. The Doctor couldn't even bring himself to raise his own from Sir's surprisingly clean shoes. _

_Then Sir moved his hand and offered what he was holding to the Doctor, who gasped and felt his stomach churn with desire. In his hand sat a beautiful turkey, bacon, and cheese sandwich with lettuce and basil pesto. The smell radiating off of it was intoxicating. But there was only enough for a few bites, and nothing more. _

"_Take it." Sir demanded in a soft voice. The Doctor knew he should obey, but his eyes suddenly fell on the girl, who was unable to stand but was leaning forward anxiously, her eyes desperate and intent on the small amount of food. He suddenly felt repulsed at the sight of it. "This might be the only food you get in a long time, Doctor." Sir reminded him. "I'd take it if I were you." _

"_Sh-she needs it more." He said quietly, barely in a whisper. _

_Sir's hand was instantly around his throat, drawing a yelp from the Doctor at the sudden movement. "I'm not offering it to her, am I?" Sir growled before thrusting the sandwich into the Doctor's hand and releasing him. The Doctor coughed at looked down at the lump of food in his hand. His stomach roared at him to either devour it or chuck it away as fast as he could. He settled for the latter, but Sir seemed t have read his mind. "Eat it. Eat it, and I might be bringing her the feast of her lifetime. Don't eat it, and I will cut each and every one of her tiny fingers off those adorable little hands of hers. So the way I see it, either there's a chance she lives if you eat, or she will definitely die of blood loss if you don't. Your choice." _

_Sir stepped back and crossed his arms. This was definitely not one of his physically painful activities, but it was definitely torture. The Doctor felt his hearts ripping in two as he looked at the desperate girl. He simplified it in his head; either she might live or she definitely wouldn't. The Doctor thought he knew what was really going to happen, but he took an agonizing bite anyway, casting her the most pained and apologetic look he had ever given, hoping with all his hearts that Sir would reward him for his obedience and bring her the food he had offered. _

_He didn't. And a few days later the girl's organs began to resign, shutting down as quickly as someone could shut off the lights. But it wasn't until a week later that Sir returned, holding a take-away bag from some Chinese restaurant, obviously acting surprised and upset at the sight of what had been the girl. The Doctor himself could hardly even raise his tearstained eyes from the floor, hating Sir more than ever. Hating himself more than ever. _

**TBC**

_A/N Phewww! This chapter was a difficult one, but I gotta say I get way too much enjoyment writing this stuff. Next chapter we see the return of "Jack" and sh*t really hits the fan…_

_On another note, I discovered that I have contracted a deadly illness that can only be cure, coincidentally, by receiving reviews for my stories. You can't let me die now, can you? What with the story being almost done…(Okay, I'll stop begging for reviews)_


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N So I thought I'd posted this earlier, but apparently it didn't go through. Has FF been acting really weird lately, or does it just hate me?_

His eyes were dry, but desperate sobs wrecked his entire body as he began hyperventilating, his shoulders violently shuddering with each unstable breath. Martha was taken aback by this sudden change: throughout the Doctor's story his voice may have been weak and distant at times, but he had managed to keep up a steady narrative. Now, suddenly, he couldn't seem to get one solid word out passed his frantic gasps for air.

She realized as soon as she saw his hands, his fingernail biting into the skin of his palms, drawing crescent shaped blood, that he was having a panic attack, probably brought on by the onslaught of unpleasant memories. Or maybe by the one he wasn't telling her. The one what started with not being alone…

Instantly Martha jumped up from her chair and sat down beside the Doctor, placing her hands firmly yet comfortingly on his chest. He was shaking so hard, and she could feel his hearts beating about a mile a minute beneath her palms. She quickly lifted him up by the shoulders so he as sitting instead of laying down, hoping this would help clear his airways so he could breathe easier. She pulled him close, guiding his head onto her shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him, embracing him as tightly as she dared.

The Doctor stiffened for a fraction of a second before simply breaking down. He drew in a giant breath and began to sob into Martha's shoulder, burying his head in the crook of her neck. Her hand was running gently through the back of his hair in slow, rhythmic motions as she began to rock back and forth, making comforting hushing sounds and whispering into his ear that she was there and he was okay now.

Martha herself felt tears swelling in her eyes and fought them back. Just the fact that she was holding her hero in her arms while he cried so heartbreakingly made her want to burst into tears and run away. But she couldn't. She had to be there for him. Because no one else was. And right now the Doctor needed it more than ever, because at that exact moment the Doctor had never felt so horribly human.

After a while the Doctor had no more tears to shed, he had used up his well, and he and Martha just sat there, embracing each other, the Doctor shuddering every so often with residual sobs. He suddenly felt more exhausted than ever before and longed for nothing more than to escape into a long, dreamless sleep. "M-Martha?" He pulled his head away from her shoulder just a bit.

"Hmm?"

The Doctor hesitated, wondering if this would work. "C-can I go to sleep n-now?" He could feel her surprised reaction more than see it. He lifted himself off her shoulder carefully so he could read her expression more clearly. "Is that – Is that okay?"

Martha looked so shocked, but she quickly concealed it behind a genuine smile as she nodded happily. "Yes, Doctor, of course it's okay. Go to sleep."

The Doctor nodded slowly, gratitude coursing through his entire exhausted body. Maybe this was going to be okay. Technically he had been given permission, anyway. He laid back into the impossibly deep, comfortable pillows and immediately felt himself begin to drift away. Martha stood and helped smooth the blankets back up under his chin, but as she turned away she felt a hand grab hers.

"Will you stay?"

Martha turned to hear the quiet voice ask. The Doctor was looking at her hopefully and she felt another smile forming. "Of course I'll stay. I'll be right here." The Doctor nodded, closing his eyes, and it wasn't long until Martha heard his shaky breath become deep and steady as he finally succumbed to sleep.

Making sure he was really asleep, Martha quietly crept out of the room, grabbed the book she'd been reading in Greece from her suitcase, and settled back into the chair beside the Doctor's bed. The Doctor lay quietly in the bed, already in a pretty deep sleep. It was the most relaxed she'd seen him in weeks and she thought that maybe – _maybe _– they had actually done something right in making him tell her what had happened. Something in him had healed that night, and his sleep was the proof of that.

They stayed as they were for about two hours, Martha getting dangerously close to the end of her book and the Doctor still fast asleep. At one point the Doctor began to twitch in his sleep, his eyes shifting quickly beneath their lids and his breath hitching in his lungs. Martha took his hand ever so gently, squeezing it carefully so as to not wake him up but let him know she was there, and he began to relax again, falling back into the throes of unconsciousness.

A loud metallic beeping rudely interrupted the silence of the room and Martha dove into her pocket, pulling out her phone and trying to silence it before it woke the sleeping Time Lord. She stood up and rushed towards the door, expecting the call to be from Mickey, but frowned as she saw the caller ID. Making sure she was far enough away she jabbed the 'answer' button.

"Jack?"

"Where's the Doctor?" Jack asked quickly. Martha was startled by his voice. It was deeper than usual – which is saying something, because he wasn't exactly a falsetto to begin with – and seemed to strangely stress the last syllables of each word.

"It's alright," Martha answered quickly. "He's asleep. He woke up for a bit but he's settled back down again now. I'm pretty sure the drug's out of his system, I think he's just exhausted. I mean, who wouldn't be?" She shuddered as she recalled his stories.

"So he's still at Torchwood?" Jack's voice still sounded weird, but Martha shook it off. He was probably still upset about what had happened.

"Yeah, we're in the medical bay. I told him –"

"I'll be there in a minute."

"Wait, Jack, I don't think –" But Jack had already hung up. Martha stared for a moment at the screen of her phone before shrugging, pocketing it, and moving back into the room.

The Doctor had rolled onto his side now, one arm wrapped around his torso and the other cradling his head on the pillow. Martha sat down and picked up her book again, trying to find where she'd left off. She hadn't gotten far down the page, however, when a voice startled her from behind. "Is he alright?"

Martha spun around in her chair to see Jack standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with his eyes screwed shut, pinching the bridge of his nose as if trying to ward off a headache. Warily, Martha nodded. "Yeah, like I said, just sleeping."

"Can I talk to him?"

"No, Jack, I really don't think that's a good idea. He needs his rest and, quite frankly, I don't think he fancies you very much right now."

Jack laughed hollowly. "Oh, good start." He muttered to himself with a smile, his eyes still closed as if not wanting to see what was laying in that bed. "Can I just be in here alone with him then? Just for a minute."

Martha turned back around in the chair, making sure the Doctor hadn't woken up at the sound of their voices. He was still out, but how long would that last? "Let's wait till he's awake." Martha said in a whisper, still not looking at Jack. "It's not a good plan right now."

Behind her, she heard Jack sigh and enter the room anyway, walking up behind her. "Oh well, it was worth a shot." He mumbled before,

_WHAM!_

Martha didn't even have time to cry out as Jack brought a piece of the broken metal piping the Doctor had been using earlier down on her head. She slumped to the floor, the chair squeaking across the tiles as she fell out of it. Jack laughed as he swung the pipe idly in his hands and glanced at the Doctor. Still amazingly asleep. _Oh, this is going to be too much fun._

He crept around to the other side of the bed, glancing around the familiar medical bay with his new, blue eyes. He began quietly opening cabinets, trying to see what damage he could do with what he'd been provided, and smiled excitedly when he finally came cross a drawer filled with syringes. "Oh, how convenient." Jack reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a small vial of yellow-tinged liquid.

Now he approached the Doctor, still curled on his side with his back to Jack. Jack scrutinized the Doctor's oh so vulnerable arm before sliding the tip of the syringe beneath his skin. The Doctor immediately began to squirm uncomfortably, finally waking up, and rolled over slowly, looking up at Jack's turned away body with sleepy eyes. "Jack?" He asked groggily.

Jack turned around and fixed the Doctor with a piercing, electrified stare. "Guess again, Doc."

The Doctor was awake instantly. "No. no, no, no, no, no!" He jumped and scrambled frantically out of the bed, trying to get as far away from Jack as possible. But his legs were still too weak and gave out under him, bringing him down to collapse on the tile floor.

Jack laughed as the Doctor began to hyperventilate again, still trying to shuffle away. Jack walked slowly around the edge of the bed, looming over the Doctor's panicking form. "Were you sleeping, were you sleeping? My dear pet, my dear pet." He sang, forever demonizing the tune of the Farajaka song. He stopped when he stood directly over the Doctor. "Did you forget my rules already, Doctor? Obviously I haven't drilled them into you enough." As if to do so, Jack swung his foot back and plowed it, hard, into the Doctor's ribs.

The force of it knocked the Doctor to his side where he stayed, trying to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him. He could feel the all too familiar drug surfing through him now. He tried to flinch away as the stabs of burning pain began, but you can't escape something that's inside you. With each second it got stronger and he felt himself curling instinctively into a protective ball, trying to ward off the invisible attackers as well as hold his throbbing side.

That was when he saw her, sprawled out on the floor a few feet away, the heavy pipe resting near her prone, unmoving body. "M-Martha!" The Doctor forced the pain to the back of his mind – not an easy task – and tried to crawl the short expanse over to his friend. His entire body fought against even the slightest movement, and there were tears in his eyes by the time he reached her from the pain and the fear of losing her as well as his mind.

He went to grab for her wrist, to find a pulse, but he was tugged backwards suddenly by the hair. He shouted, surprised by the pain, and tried to grab at the hand entangled in his brown mop, but his muscles were beginning to betray him again, the drug taking a more prominent effect.

"It's too late, Doctor." He heard Jack's now sinister voice hiss at him. "She's already dead. Are you happy now, because this is what you did. _You_ caused this, Doctor." Jack growled in his ear. "_You_ killed Martha Jones."

"No. I didn't mean – Martha!" Tears were escaping him now as he tried to call out his friend's name, but it turned into a strangled shout as the pain spiked for a moment. "Martha, wa – AHH! – wake up. Please. GAH!"

Jack walked up beside the trembling Time Lord, looking down at his pathetic form. "You see, Doctor? This is your problem. You CARE about them TOO. MUCH." He accentuated those three words with three swift kicks to the Doctor's side. The Doctor heard and felt one of his just recently mended ribs re-breaking and he gasped for air as the kicks drove the breath from his lungs. He collapsed onto his uninjured side, curling around the offended area, but Jack wouldn't have that. He grabbed the Doctor by the throat and hauled him up one handedly, pulling his face within inches of his own and glaring into the Doctor's pain-stricken, tear-stained face. "Yes, this is all your fault, Doctor. Jackie-boy's possession, Martha's death…the credits all yours."

"No!" The Doctor strained against the pressure on his windpipe. He could feel the drug now stronger than ever, but the terror of what he had inadvertently done to his friends was drowning out the physical pain, replacing it with the even more painful emotional.

"_YES._" Jack slammed the Doctor backwards into the wall of glass cabinets. One of them shattered as the Doctor's head made impact, shards of glass raining down on them. The Doctor was seeing stars, trying to bring Jack and his glowing eyes back into focus. "Did you _really_ think you could escape me, Doctor? What a very disobedient pet, running away from its master. I think that deserves double doses, don't you, Doc?"

The Doctor's eyes widened fearfully at the suggestion as he immediately began to struggle fruitlessly out of Jack's vice-like grip. "N-n-no, p-please! I'm s-s-sorry!" He tried to beg desperately.

"I told you, Doctor: _sorry isn't good enough!_" Jack growled as he plunged another syringe into the Doctor's neck, ejecting the liquid hellfire into the Doctor's bloodstream. The effect was instantaneous. The Doctor _screamed_! His entire body felt like it was engulfed in fire, his head exploding a hundred times over with the force of a volcano. Jack tossed him aside like a useless ragdoll and he fell gracelessly to the floor, twitching and flinching frantically as he yelled and gasped for air. Between shouts Jack saw the Doctor desperately trying to say something, but the painful waves stopped him. Finally there was a gap long enough for him to barely gasp out two strangled, whispered syllables that sounded suspiciously like "Martha" before he seemed to lose himself and began to flail on floor, as if he were having a seizure, no longer able to even yell through the pain.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, surveying the scene he'd just made. Two bodies, glass shattered all across the floor, sheets flung off the bed. Not bad. Not bad at all. Not quite as much blood as he had hoped for, but there was one unconscious human and one troublesome Time Lord lost in his drug-induced hell, who had far more coming at him for what he'd done, so he was satisfied. The creature wearing Jack's face made it smile despite the owners futile objections. He was in control now, not that human freak. And control felt _so_ good.

Jack was pulled out of his thoughts as a noise other than the Doctor's pathetic whimpers reached his ears. Looking down he saw Martha beginning to stir, groaning her hand came up to rest on the back of her head. It came back smeared slightly with blood – not too much, but enough for her to gasp at the sudden splitting headache it had caused. Jack glanced curiously at the waking figure beneath him, his head cocked to the side, before a smile fell on his cruel lips. He stooped down so he was kneeling right in front of her, waiting for that glorious moment when she'd look up and feel it.

And there it was. Having pushed herself shakily onto her hands and knees, Martha seemed to realize she was not alone. She glanced up at the smiling man before her and her heart seemed to give up entirely. She flew backwards as if electrically shocked, staring at her old friend in absolute, indefinable horror. "Oh my God, J-Jack?"

"Good morning, sunshine." He was dangerously cheery. "Oh, and about the head, sorry not sorry."

Martha was trembling, partially from the fear of what had become of Jack and partially from the concussion he'd given her. She glanced around the room, looking for something to defend herself with or a way out, but all her suddenly fuzzy mind could take in was the sight of the Doctor a few feet away, laying in a pile of broken glass, twitching and writhing on the floor. Her mouth fell open as she recognized the effects from his story. "N-no! Jack, what have you done!"

She tried to stand but Jack held her down, standing up himself so he could tower over her again. "Oh no, sweetheart, that wasn't Jack, that was all me. And you, my dear," _Oh, this is going to be interesting._ He licked his lips as a plan began to form in his mind. "For the Doctor's sake, are going to learn to call me 'Sir'. Understand, pumpkin?" He didn't wait for her to respond but instead drove his fist down, striking Martha on the side of the head and knocking her out for the second time in the last ten minutes. The only sound that followed was a broken, pitiful sob from the Doctor's tortured soul.

**TBC**

_A/N Okay, so I wasn't sure if I should have referred to him as Jack or Sir, because he's in Jack's body and I want people to remember that it's Jack doing this to the Doctor…but Sir's the character…anyway, let me know which one is better and I'll try to fix it next chapter! Toodles! (Is that too cheerful considering what I just wrote? What is wrong with me?) _


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N I apologize about a thousand times for the longer than usual wait for this chapter. My excuses are five-fold : 1) finals week 2) really sick 3) had a "fun" Friday night and, therefore, a "rough" Saturday morning 4) got my dream internship 5) hated how it was written at first and had to rewrite it all. By the way, if I never update again, it's because this Art History class finally killed me. _

Martha came around to the pounding of her own heart in her ears, bringing with each beat a snap of pain to the side of her head. The world was rocking around her, though not from the concussion she was pretty sure she had. Maybe it was an earthquake. But as she lay there the rocking continued more or less rhythmically, far longer and less chaotic than any normal earthquake. The surface she was laying on jolted and shifted slightly, dragging her further into consciousness. Whatever was beneath her and against her back was soft, but something smooth and hard pressed against her cheek. It was incredibly uncomfortable, especially the bit jutting out and bruising her side, but she couldn't be bothered to try moving.

The world suddenly jumped and Martha was fully jolted awake. With a quick glance she realized she was in the backseat of a car and after another moment her slow brain recognized it as the interior of the Torchwood vehicle. Light was pouring in from the window and stabbed her painfully in the eyes. She cringed as the pain in her head spiked. What had happened? How'd she get in the car? Why did her head _hurt_ so much?

When she tried to cradle her throbbing forehead in her hands and realized they were actually tied tightly behind her back, she remembered. Her eyes flew open as the memories came rushing back, now ignoring the effect the sun was having on her minor concussion. She could see Jack's profile from where he was sitting in the driver's seat, eyes intent on the road. He didn't seem to have noticed her wake up. The motorway was flying passed the window and any distinctions about where they were blurred together in a mess of gray and green. Martha tried and failed miserably to decipher the smeared words on the signs they passed, her head beginning to hurt even more from the effort and confusion.

That was when she heard the strangled whimper from the seat next to her and spun around, jaw falling open. "Doctor?" She gasped. The Doctor lay sprawled across the seat, his long legs folded uncomfortably against the car door and head practically in Martha's lap. His face was contorted with pain, tear streaks marking his cheeks and nose bleeding lazily as he squirmed and twitched half-heartedly. Hs hands, too, were bound behind his back, though Martha doubted that was necessary considering his state. She doubted he was even conscious at all.

"Ah, good morning!" Martha jumped as Jack's voice wafted into the backseat. She looked up and was met with an impossible icy blue gaze through the rearview mirror. The sudden shock of indefinable dread reminded her sharply that _this…this _was _not _Jack. Not her Jack, anyway, just a monster wearing his face. But through the terror she could still hear the Doctor's feeble moan from beside her, sending fire through her veins and drowning out the icy fingers of fear.

"What did you do to him?" Martha demanded, her voice not coming out quite as strong as she had hoped.

Jack – or rather the thing inside Jack: _Sir – _chuckled. "Nothing our little Time Lord doesn't deserve. Believe me, when he wakes up, I'm sure he'll agree he had it coming."

"_Deserves it_?" Martha spat back. "There are a lot of things the Doctor _deserves, _but the hell it's _this!_"

Her outburst was punctuated by a sudden shout from the Doctor, who struggled weakly against his binds as if not sure they were really there. Martha turned back to him, wishing her own hands were free so she could take the Doctor in her arms, show him some sort of comfort from the Hell he was reeling in, when she heard him gasp two words. "_Blodevin-Rose_." Martha frowned, not recognizing his words. "_Koshei, treo. Eya meim'Idne."_ It certainly wasn't any human language, but her breath hitched as she realized what it was. He never spoke it before – never let himself out of shame – but the words flowed perfectly and fit together as effortlessly as puzzle pieces and there was no mistaking what it had to be.

"_Nanoi'Envae'Dosh kui'lal, Koschei, yea meim'Idne-so._" The Doctor sobbed, fresh tears falling from beneath his eyelids. Martha had to force back her own as the Doctor shouted out in pain, arching his back and quivering violently.

"Oh look, he's dreaming." Jack – no, _Sir_ – cooed with a chuckle. "Adorable little time-tot, isn't he?"

"What do you _want_?" Martha ground out as she forced her eyes away from the Doctor.

"What do I _want_? Nothing. I'm just bored and vindictive. Unfortunately, books don't do it for me. I need more hands-on entertainment. Besides," He glanced back in the rearview mirror, catching Martha in a terrifying glare. "The Doctor's been bad. I need to punish him, like any good master would do."

Martha swallowed hard, feeling incredibly selfish but asking anyways, "Then what do you want with me?" She found herself trapped in another one of his gazes, frozen against the backrest of the seat. He squinted at her through the mirror, eyebrows furrowing.

"I just told you…I need to punish the Doctor." Martha shivered at the implications, but Sir seemed to think the conversation had come to an end. "Okay, enough talk for now." He mumbled as he purposefully spun viciously around a corner. Martha, unable to brace herself, flew sideways and hit her head on the glass window with a _smack, _joining the previousconcussion to draw her back into unwilling unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>The Doctor rose back to reality with a groan. He tried to pry open his eyes, but his eyelids felt like they were being weighed down with lead and crazy glue. He felt weak all over, his body still shivering with the last remnants of the drug and…cold? Why was he so cold again?<p>

The Doctor decided quickly that he didn't _want_ to know why, but of course he couldn't pretend forever that he didn't remember what had happened. He couldn't persuade himself to forget or think it was just another one of his bad dreams. The dulled spike of pain from within his own body as the drugs ran themselves out told him so much.

He heard footsteps coming towards him and he knew what that meant. He tried to back away but found a wall already pressing against his back. His arms were useless as they were pulled uncomfortably above his head, holding most of his weight as his pained legs still failed to find their footing. He shuddered as the rushed footsteps stopped right before him, cornering him.

"Doctor?" The light, concerned voice was not what he had been expecting. He carefully managed to peel his eyes open and came face-to-face with Martha Jones, her dark eyes full of worry and apprehension. "Doctor, it's alright, I've got you." She tried to comfort. She took his face in the palms of her hands and the Doctor felt himself melt into her touch.

"Martha. I am so, so sorry."

"Shh…" Martha hushed softly as she began to massage his cheeks with her thumbs. "It's okay, Doctor. Are you feeling better?"

The Doctor ignored her, closing his eyes and giving a shuddering sigh. "I shouldn't have stayed." He said in little more than a whisper. "I was putting all of you in danger. Now he has you. And Jack. And it's all my fault."

"Hey!" Martha said forcefully. She lifted his head with her hands until he opened his eyes, darkened with sadness and self-hatred. "Listen to me." Martha demanded. "This is not your fault. Do you hear me?"

There was a pause in which the Doctor forced himself to nod, whether he believed her or not – which, of course, he didn't. But Martha seemed to accept it. She looked around the small room quickly, cringing at the low ceiling and stone walls holding in the cold. "I don't know where we are, he knocked me out before I could see."

"We're back." The Doctor interrupted solemnly. "Same cellar, same everything. I don't know where either, but I don't think it's too far from Cardiff."

Martha nodded towards the steps leading out. "I tried the hatch, but it won't budge. I also couldn't find anything to break the chains to let you down."

"No, you wouldn't be able to, would you?" The Doctor mused as he looked up at the chains securing his wrists to the wall. "Soverulsen steel. Not from anywhere around these parts – and by these parts I mean this galaxy. Someone's been keeping busy while I was gone." He tugged on them experimentally, not altogether surprised when he achieved nothing from it. "Soverulsen steel comes from the planet Soverulsiaron," He told a confused looking Martha. "and it's one of the strongest substances in the universe. Will only open if you have the exact right shaped key. He had to have found someone here to trade it to him since he can't get off-planet. But that's not what's important."

He fixed her with an intense look, his eyes suddenly clear and burning. "Are you alright?" His voice was tight with concern. "Did he hurt you?"

Martha shrugged, amazed, but honestly not really surprised, that he was worrying more about her than himself. There's her Doctor. "I'm fine. Just a bit of a concussion and a wicked headache. Give me some aspirin and I'll be good as new." The Doctor continued to stare at her deeply as if trying to tell if she was lying or not. She decided it'd be a bad idea to admit that she was fighting to not see him double at the moment. "Look, we're going to get out of here, alright. You did it once before, and know people know about it. Gwen. Ianto. Mickey, though not really enough to be that helpful, honestly."

The Doctor laughed shortly. "Mick-Mick-Mickidy." He mumbled, his words a ghost of his former self. "Now I'd like to see him face down Sir. _That_ would be interesting."

Martha laughed at the expense of her husband. "For what it's worth, you're sounding better." The Doctor became solemn once again and Martha bit her lip hard for saying something wrong.

"Adrenaline." The Doctor said simply. "Denial, I suppose, too. There's no chance I'm still asleep in Torchwood and just dreaming, is there?"

Martha shook her head, unable to bring forth words.

There was silence for a moment between them. The Doctor closed his eyes, leaning his head back and rolling it gently across the stone wall behind him, feeling every bump in the stonework on the back of his head. Despite the situation, he could feel something different. Something good he hadn't been able to detect before. He let his mind lazily drift and reach out for whatever it could be, afraid that at any moment it would hit the terrifying essence that was his captor's.

"Doctor?" He snapped out of his hunt, not having the energy or concentration to hold onto it without his full attention. He opened his eyes to find that Martha had positioned herself against the opposite wall, cross-legged and leaning back against the stones, looking exhausted. "Why didn't he chain me up?"

The Doctor honestly had no answer. And quite frankly he didn't really want to delve into psyche of the motivations behind what that man does.

But he was spared that by the sounds of footsteps approaching. The Doctor perked up, trying to keep his rapidly fragmenting breath even as he stared at the door at the top of the stairs. Martha had jumped up as well, walking cautiously into the middle of the room. The sound of metal on metal came from the other side of the hatch as the locks began to come apart. Martha glanced quickly at the Doctor before pressing herself closely to the wall that jutted out from the stairs, creating a blind spot from the door.

"Martha!" The Doctor hissed as he pulled himself up further in his bonds, straining to reach her. She was going to try something. Why were they always so brave? Sometimes he wished they would just sit down and accept what was coming, save themselves the pain. But then again, would the Doctor's friends ever be ones to just give up?

Martha nodded shortly at the Doctor, trying to reassure him. They heard the final lock slip open and the metal hatch creaked open. The Doctor fought not to look at Martha and give her away, but keep his eyes on the one thing he wanted to run away from instead.

Martha let out a long, silent breath to steady herself. She counted the steps he was taking down the stairs, trying not to look at the Doctor and the slowly growing uncertainty in his features. Finally the intruder took the last step and came slowly into view, his back to Martha. She could see the familiar World War II coat, all hopes of only having imagined it being Jack vanishing instantly. Martha flipped over the stone she'd managed to loosen out of the wall earlier, feeling for the sharpest edge and pushing all regret for what she was about to do to Jack from her mind.

Jack's form stopped a few feet in front of the Doctor, neither of them saying a thing. And Martha took her chance. She leapt forward from her hiding place, swinging her right arm with the rock viciously at the back of Jack's exposed neck, the edge of the stone aiming for the base of his spine.

It never hit its mark. He spun around surprisingly fast, grabbing her wrist just as it was arching towards his neck and bringing his other elbow down on the crook of her arm. Her elbow buckled and she fell forward from the force, but used the momentum to bring her leg around towards his knees, trying to sweep him off his feet. But he still had her wrist and spun her around viciously. Off balance from her failed kick, Martha stumbled as he whirled her around quickly and she slammed into the wall, her head ringing from the earlier strikes. Stunned, she could do nothing as she felt fingers pull at her hair, dragging her away from the wall forcefully and tossing her across the room, where she staggered and fell onto her knees from the sudden motion.

"Jack! Stop it!" The Doctor yelled before he could stop himself. The man he thought was his friend, who had been slowly approaching the fallen girl, slowly turned around, drowning the Doctor in a glare that reminded him quickly that _this _was _not _Jack.

The Doctor regretted having spoken as 'Jack' came striding towards him, reaching into the pocket of his large coat. He stopped in front of the Doctor and didn't pause for a second as he pulled out Jack's old revolver, pressed the nozzle to the Doctor's shoulder, and pulled the trigger.

_BANG!_

"AGHHH!" The Doctor cried out in agony as the bullet tore through the skin and muscles and tendons in his shoulder, chipping a bone on its way out the back. His vision blurred white for a moment as he fought off the wave of sudden nausea. A hand grabbed his chin and forced his gaze upwards, straight into the electric blue abyss.

"Seems you still haven't remembered our lessons, Doctor. Jack's not hear any more. It's _allllllll_ me. And you will refer to me in the proper manner." He growled into the Doctor's face.

"Y-yes, Sir." The Doctor forced himself to gasp and Sir tossed his face aside, causing the Doctor's neck to crack. Martha had pulled herself up and was standing, horror-struck, watching the two men. Sir raised the revolver to aim straight at her.

"Fight. I like it. Not many of the other ones had it in them. No wonder you like her, Doctor." He shot a glance over his shoulder at the bleeding Time Lord. "Now, I personally am not a big fan of guns, but this body seems to have a bit of a trigger finger. Of course, I think he's trying to shoot himself more than you two, but that's the good thing about being in control, I can make him aim exactly where I want it to and make him watch it all."

He snickered darkly before nodding at Martha. "Now, Miss Jones, if you don't mind. Against the wall."

Martha's shoulders slumped as she raised her hands, backing up until her shoulders struck the stone wall. The corner of Jack's mouth twitched up as Sir made him smile. He reached into another of his deep pockets and pulled out a pair of thick, strong looking handcuffs. Keeping his gun trained on Martha he began to go towards her while looking back over at the Doctor. "Had to run out and grab larger cuffs. Those last ones were just so _tiny._ We'll she was a tiny one though, wasn't she, Doctor?" He pulled the cuffs through an iron loop attached to the wall and grabbed one of Martha's wrist, snapping it securely in the shackles before starting on the other one. "What was her name…Jenny? Jennet? Juliet! That's the one! Nice girl. Bit thin though, didn't you think?"

Martha watched as the Doctor raised his head, his eyes almost black with pain and anger. "You bastard." He growled through his teeth.

Having finished chaining Martha to the wall, Sir strode across the short expanse of the cellar dangerously. "I'd be careful, Doctor." He warned. "I'm not done punishing you for running away on me." He put his hand carefully on the Doctor's injured shoulder. The Doctor winced as the weight pulled on the hole in his skin. "And I _don't _appreciate your tone."

Sir suddenly dug the heel of his palm into the Doctor's shoulder, pressing against the fresh wound. The Doctor screamed out, his back arcing off the wall as the pressure sent the bullet hole searing, pulsing, _roaring _in agony! His scream was cut short though as Jack covered his mouth with his hand, silencing him with the movement.

"I don't want to hear your excuses anymore, Doctor. I've heard 'sorry' one too many times from you. Now I don't want to hear you say anything." He took a step back, deliberately pressing both hands harder against the Doctor to make him suck in a deep breath of pain. The Doctor slumped forward, the chains being the only things holding him up as he struggled to find his footing again. Sir picked up the gun, checked it was load, and grabbed the Doctor roughly by the throat again, dragging him upright.

"Okay, Doctor, now we're going to play a little game. You missed our games, didn't you? I call this one 'Sir's Got Your Tongue'. And here's how it goes."

He blindly shot the gun in the opposite direction. Martha shouted as the bullet embedded itself just a foot aware from her stomach. "Stop!" The Doctor gasped, but Sir placed Jack's finger to his lips, quieting him.

"I don't have to miss, Doctor. And I won't miss unless you follow my rules."

He stared intently at the Doctor, who forced himself to stand on his weak legs. After a moment of silence he realized what he was supposed to do. "What are your rules, Sir?" He asked slowly, the words rolling off his tongue as slowly as molasses.

Jack's face smiled. "I already told you. I don't want to hear your excuses. I don't want to hear your pleas. I don't want to hear your voice. If I _do_ hear so much as a gasp, a sob, a strangled scream rip out of your throat and roll off your tongue, I'll put a bullet between Martha Jones' eyes."

The Doctor blanched. His hearts seemed to go a hundred miles and hour and then stop suddenly and then start back up again, leaving him feeling like his chest was being ripped out. Not a single sound? He looked over at Martha, who was breathing hard from shock, watching him with an expression he couldn't read in his panicking state. He knew what he was going to do. Not a single noise would escape his lips. No matter what, he would not allow himself to be the cause of Martha's death. Would not allow Jack – the real Jack, the one that had to be in there somewhere fighting against this monster – to carry the guilt of pulling the trigger on his friend.

His eyes were brought back to the impossible man before him as Sir snapped his fingers suddenly before the Doctor's eyes. "Do you understand and acknowledge my rules, Doctor?" Swallowing hard, the Doctor forced his answer down before it could rise to his lips, compelling himself to nod. Sir reached into his belt and pulled out a long, wickedly sharp knife. "Good, then let's begin, shall we."

**TBC**


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N Sorry again guys for the long wait! I was in Kentucky for a week watching the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event! (If any of you are horseback riders than maybe you understand how exciting that is!) And was too busy being my Instructor's slave for the weekend to write much. But here you go! Chapter 14! Enjoy and we make it down to the final stretch…_

_This chapter is a pretty damn whumpy, but I did tone it down just a little bit due to a few comments about it being a little too much in the past. Let me know if this is better, or, conversely, needed to be more. _

The Doctor pressed his lips together so hard they were turning white. His jaw was clenched tightly as he compressed his tongue against the barricade that was the back of his teeth while the knife curved its way through his skin once more. He could feel the hot, sticky liquid coursing down his chest, soaking the top of his trousers and sliding all the way down to drip off his toes, which were helplessly trying to find their way back to supporting him. Each cut was deep, meant to leave a vicious scar, but not deep enough to be life threatening, the Doctor keeping reminding himself that Sir would not be aiming to kill him.

But the same couldn't be said for the other occupant of the room, and so the Doctor bit his tongue and swallowed the painful cries his body was dying to emit. For some reason this was even worse. It's as if hearing himself scream, letting himself react instinctively to the pain that was coursing through him, had somehow lessened its intensity, and now he was forced to focus on it instead.

It began with his shirt. Sir ripped it into unrecognizable tatters with his knife so it fell loosely from his bound body. The cold assaulted his suddenly exposed skin and left him shivering. Sir looked him over hungrily, trailing the tip of the knife lightly over his skin, not breaking it but sending a chill down the Doctor's spine. "A blank page once again," Sir said with Jack's voice, the familiar American accent like a slap to the Time Lord's face. "I do love how quickly you Time Lords heal. A clean canvas inspires so much more creativity, don't you think?" He paused as if waiting for the Doctor to answer, but the Doctor didn't succumb to it, just kept his mouth shut and his eyes pinned on Martha's. As the first incision began, just below his sternum, his eyes moved to glare daggers into the stonework above her head and he forced himself to breath heavily through his nose instead of his mouth to ward off the temptation to gasp.

Martha, on the other hand, had taken no such vow of silence and was actively using her right to talk. From her spot across the room Martha strained against her bonds shouting various forms of 'STOP IT!" and "Please!" as well as throwing insults at Jack's back. In the beginning Sir mostly ignored her, tracing a red, dripping line beneath the Doctor's collarbone and dangerously close to his neck (the Doctor tried hard not to swallow and hit the blade even more), but Martha was persistent until finally she shouted hoarsely "Jack, leave him ALONE!"

Sir spun sharply, the tip of the blade slicing carelessly across the Doctor's shoulder and down his side as he turned. The Doctor quickly lowered his eyes to Martha and when he caught her gaze ever-so-slightly shook his head, brown eyes wide with warning and pain. But Martha looked away, attention on Jack's face.

"Sir," She corrected herself evenly and pointedly, trying to keep her head as his electrified eyes bore into her dangerously. "Just, leave him alone. You can go back to your own planet or system where you belong. You must have family or…something…" Martha tried her best to keep up a bargainer's voice, but Sir had now turned fully to face her and the fear he emitted was suddenly giving her tunnel-vision. She glanced back at the Doctor, who was looking between the two of them fearfully.

"Oh, little girl," Said Sir condescendingly, "Do you even _know_ where I'm from?"

Martha returned her gaze to him. "The C-Calypsian Galaxy…?" She ventured a guess with a voice little more than a whisper. Sir chuckled.

"Yes, very good. I see someone's been gossiping about me." He caressed the Doctor's jaw with the blade, making sure to press hard enough to cut. The Doctor closed his eyes and flinched away violently, but Sir just laughed and grabbed his chin as he drew an identical line down the other side. He turned back to Martha. "But had you even heard of the Calypsian Galaxy before this little adventure?"

Martha remained silent, unsure which answer was correct and which would just make matters worse, as it was sure to do. Her silence, it turned out, was wrong answer enough. Sir twirled the knife around in his hand and placed its tip just below the Doctor's right nipple. "A quick geography lesson then."

He drew a circle into the Doctor's skin, large enough to cut across the dark patch of bruising on the Doctor's side. The Doctor sucked in a breath of air a little too quickly as the knife pressed against his broken rib, sending a shock of pain through his side to accompany the biting, stinging, pulsing sensation of each incision. Martha watched as Sir drew a few random shapes inside the circle, although the blood dripping down made it almost unrecognizable. "_This,_" He began, stabbing the tip of the blade a little deeper into the skin beside the circle to emphasize his point. "Is my home planet. I would tell you its name, but there is absolutely no society on our planet to give it a name because everyone is too busy killing each other. Family, you ask of? I killed my mother when I was six years old just to watch her die. We're not exactly family friendly back home."

"Now this…" He drew another circle, larger than the last, on the Doctor's opposite side. Martha saw a tear, one tiny, insignificant drop, roll down the Doctor's cheek and run into the stream of blood dripping down his chin. "This is Venari" He drew a bloody ring around the planet and a smaller circle above it. "and its moon Satter-nt. And the Venarian's have been at war with –" Another planet was inscribed into the Doctor's midriff, circling his navel. "Salguod, right there, since the universe decided to go BANG!" He accompanied the word with a quick _slash_ across the Doctor's waist, just above the waistline of his trousers.

"And because these two –" He drew an arrow between the bloody messes that represented Venari and Salguod. "– have been fighting since the dawn of time for no apparent reason except for to kill each other, family values aren't exactly high on their list either. Sounds great for something like me, who thrives on pain and suffering and fear, right? WRONG!"

Martha flinched as the word was shouted at her, the sound ricocheting off the stone walls and banging around in her already frantic and swirling head. Sir laughed at her reaction, showing off Jack's perfect teeth. "Wrong, because physical pain can only get you so far. It's the emotional pain that really puts the cherry on top, and where I'm from, _love _isn't something that's common enough to manipulate."

Sir pushed himself off the wall he'd been casually leaning against beside the Doctor's strung-up form and stalked towards Martha, gory knife in hand. A spark lit up suddenly in the Doctor's eyes as he arched his back away from the wall, soundlessly straining against his bonds as he watched Sir approach his friend like a lion stalking an antelope, but the spark quickly gave way as the pain of moving crashed over him and he had to focus all his energy in not verbally giving in to it. Something hummed in his ear, something pleasant and familiar he still couldn't place, and he let that consume him instead and momentarily dull the pain.

Sir was now leaning close to Martha. So close she could smell Jack's cologne on his skin as he smoothed away a strand of her hair and brushed his lips against her ear. She shivered at the contact, feeling faint and sick with fear, but couldn't make her muscles obey her to move away.

"Although I think I'm doing a pretty good job, considering." He whispered softly so only she could hear. "I think you being here might just be breaking our Doctor's hearts. So thank you for that, Miss Jones. You're killing him." He laughed loudly and Martha was jolted out of her sudden panic-induced heart failure. She looked at the Doctor, his face screwed up silently against the pain, jaw clenched, eyes scrunched tight but not able to hold back the line of tears streaking down his cheeks, and she knew Sir was right. He was suffering because of her.

"Now, just to prove this point to you," Sir spun around and announced to the room as if he were the ringmaster at a circus. "I will offer you a choice."

He stopped right before the Doctor, who just managed to open his eyes again, pushing away the humming in his ears. "It hurts, doesn't it, Doctor." Sir was all serious now. "You can feel each inch of mutilated skin stinging, pulsing, can't you? Probably a little bit of that double dose of your favorite poison still pumping and searing through your veins? Do you need a break, Doctor? All you need to do is ask." He waited for a second as the Doctor analyzed him through his heavily lidded eyes. "Do you want me to stop? Even let you go?"

Sir asked it casually enough, but the Doctor knew from that tone and experience that this had to be some kind of trick. But he also knew this was _not_ a rhetorical question and he was expected to answer despite not knowing the 'correct' answer. And so, ever-so-slightly as if walking on ice, the Doctor nodded _yes. Yes_ he would like him to stop, of course. He would like him to stop it all.

But just as he suspected, there had to be a catch. Sir laughed and shook his head. "No, no, Doctor, that's not going to be enough. If you want me to stop, you're going to have to _**say**_ so."

The Doctor had to force himself not to snort with a gallows laugh and instead fixed Sir with the most daring glare he could muster in his state of pain and fear. How on earth could this _thing _wearing Jack have thought he'd fall for that one? To just _say_ yes would be signing Martha's death certificate, and he would rather live a thousand years of torture than be responsible for a friend's death, as inevitable as it was. He had already had enough of those.

Sir sighed with a small smile. He glanced back at Martha and gave her an 'I-told-you-so' wink. "As you wish, Doctor." And he plunged the blade of the knife into the Doctor's already agonizing bullet wound on his shoulder. Martha yelled as the Doctor's entire body reacted to the pain, his torso tightening like a bow off the wall, trying to trash away from the blade but in doing so only aggravating it even more. Amazingly he stayed silent, except for a slightly louder than common intake of breath, at which Sir casually cocked the gun in anticipation for more. But no more came, only a slight trickle of blood from the corner of the Doctor's mouth from where he bit too sharply into his tongue. The metallic, coppery taste ran down the Doctor's throat and made him gag.

Martha could feel herself trembling. This was all her fault. If he had just said yes it would have stopped, and the Doctor wouldn't be going through this hell. But he was doing it for her…and she hated herself for it.

"YES! Yes, he wants you to stop! Doctor, just say it!" Martha begged, ignoring the tears burning behind her own eyes, not able to bear being the cause of his pain. She would rather die.

But Jack just turned his head, winked again, and began to twist the blade. Ninety degrees. One hundred and eighty degrees. The Doctor's entire body convulsed and Martha's heart froze as his mouth flew open in a silent scream. Blood and saliva mixed together and hung off his lower lip as he fell back, unable to even clench his mouth shut again.

Sir yanked the knife out mercilessly and the Doctor collapsed, as if the blade had been the only thing holding him up. There was a rushing in Martha's ears and she could hardly breathe, not able to take her eyes off her Doctor. He was hanging absolutely limp in the chains, head rolled forward with his chin resting on his bloodied chest, breathing shakily as blood pulsed from his wound. It looked like Sir was about to go for another slash, drawing the knife back and coming forward in a large arch. But then he stopped, inches away from the skin, and took a staggering, surprised step backwards. If Martha had been able to tear her eyes away from the Doctor, she would have seen the slight tremble of Jack's hand holding the knife. Sir glared at it, surprised himself at the sudden shaking before brushing it off.

"Oh my," He said, his voice a bit weaker than it had been just before, but not enough for either of the torture prisoners to notice. "Jackie-boy doesn't seem to like what I'm doing very much. Silly boy, still trying to fight it." It was said as if more to himself as Sir continued to observe his barely shaking limb.

Now he had Martha's attention as he slowly, uncertainly, placed the reddened knife back in his belt, feeling as shocked as he looked. After a pause Sir reached into Jack's coat and pulled out something Martha couldn't recognize. It was slim, rectangular, and dark, the same charcoal grey color as the shackles holding the Doctor up and the ring around her own handcuffs. There were three sequential _beeps _followed by a bizarre clanking resounding from somewhere within the walls. Suddenly Martha, who'd been pulling against the ring in an attempt to stop the insanity, felt her hands fall and she stumbled forward, caught off guard. Her knees struck the ground and when she looked back up she noticed the ring that had been holding her up had sprung open, like the loop on a padlock. She glanced back at the Doctor in time to see his shackles break apart as well. He crumbled into a pathetic heap at Sir's feet, sliding down the wall and leaving a red stain streaking down from behind him.

Sir was staring down at Jack's boots, eyebrows turned down in a menacing frown. Martha sat up on her knees, the handcuffs still connecting her wrists, too terrified by Sir's abrupt silence to stand. It was almost worse than when he'd been shouting. Suddenly Sir snapped his fingers and Martha jumped, startled, as he pointed at the Doctor's crumpled form. "Make sure he doesn't die. Or you'll be replacing him." Then he swept up the stairs and shouldered his way out of the cellar door, not glancing back at either of them again.

Martha waited as she heard the collection of locks and chains slide back into place before jumping to her feet. "Doctor!" She cried desperately as she collapsed again beside the injured Time Lord. He was still conscious but his eyes were screwed shut, breathing erratically through his nose. Blood was still dripping through his lips, which were parted slightly in a pained grimace.

Carefully as she could with her hands still bound, Martha pulled the Doctor up into a sitting position so she could look at his shoulder properly. The Doctor gasped so quietly as the exit wound on his back pressed against the stones but quickly bit down on his lip to shut himself up, drawing blood. "It's okay, Doctor, it's okay," Martha found herself breathing frantically. "He's gone. He can't hear you anymore. You can let it all out now." But the Doctor just shook his head, utterly silent as a soundless sob shook his body. He was trembling and Martha suddenly realized he was going into shock from the pain and blood loss. She looked frantically around the room and found the Doctor's ripped up, unrecognizable shirt laying a few feet away. She moved over to grab it and the Doctor immediately slumped to the side without her support. She picked up the slips of fabric and realized they were too small and thin to do much good for his gushing shoulder, so she pulled of her jacket, ignoring the cold of cellar. She guessed it was probably night outside, but there was no way of knowing.

"This is going to hurt," She warned as she leaned down over him again. "But we have put pressure on to stop the bleeding." The Doctor nodded his understanding without looking at her but the color in his face dropped drastically as Martha pressed her jacket against his shoulder. He managed to stifle a groan, but just barely. The room was spinning, even from behind his closed eyes, and he dare not open them for fear of what he'd find. Sir, standing over him. Martha, dead. Jack, pulling the trigger again.

"It's alright now." Martha was saying. She sounded so distant. "It's okay, he's not here. Talk to me, Doctor. Please." _No, it's a trick._ The moment he opens his mouth Sir will pounce, he was sure of it. He couldn't speak. He wouldn't speak. Not now and, if necessary, not ever again. _That_ he would sacrifice.

There was now pressure on the smaller, smarting marks on his chest, lighter and less painful at touch. The Doctor suddenly felt incredibly light-headed from sitting up and sagged to the side uncontrollably. He felt Martha grab his head before it could hit the hard floor and then there was something soft and warm beneath it. Her leg. He could hear the rattle of the chains as she tried to both hold him and keep the sweater on his shoulder, a difficult task considering there was only about six inches of leeway between them. He wanted to help, but he couldn't get his sore arms to move. In fact, he couldn't seem to get anything to move at all. His eyelids were _so_ heavy, and he knew he should open them lest he fall asleep, but they simply wouldn't obey. He felt a shaking beneath his head and realized it was Martha, sobbing. She was saying something, something that sounded familiar, something he should be responding to, but he couldn't place it, couldn't hear it. It was coming from so far away. He needed to comfort her – that is his job, a doctor, the healer – but as soon as it came to him the thought slipped away, like water between his fingers. Everything was slipping away, until only the weak double beats of his hearts sounded in the room.

And, of course, that pleasant hum, that carried him off into oblivion.

**TBC**


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N Only two more chapters plus an epilogue after this one! Wow, can't believe it's almost done…I wonder if the Doctor's going to make it or not…_

He could feel the edge of the knife breaking through the skin, plunging into the already savaged shoulder joint. He felt it slice through muscle and tendon and the small bits of bone that had fractured apart from contact with the bullet from earlier. He felt himself pushing it deeper and deeper until with a driving force and an effort he didn't realize he was using managed to stop his hand. Blood was pouring over his fingertips, hot and sticky and brilliant red, brighter than human blood.

The bars on his cell came crashing down again. Sir laughed at him from inside his own head, taunting him with thoughts more than words. Jack threw himself mentally at the wall again and again as he watch, as if in a movie theatre watching some sick horror film with too much blood and not enough sex, the Doctor writhe in his bonds as the knife protruded grotesquely from his shoulder.

In the background, distantly, like hearing it through water, he recognized Martha's voice. "YES! Yes, he wants you to stop! Doctor, just say it!" Jack knew he wouldn't say it though. Not a word. But he didn't know which was worse: torturing the Doctor or watching Martha die. He didn't think he would be able to live with either, even with his immortality. Even an immortal needed a living soul, and he wasn't sure how it would come out of that one even remotely intact.

He rattled the bars of his mental prison as he watched Sir move his head, look at Martha's desperate, tense form, and wink before returning to the Doctor. He felt his own hand moving without his approval to grip the handle of the knife and his wrist began to twist. All 180 degrees of it. Jack kicked and fought as the Doctor screamed silently, tearing at the bars and making the smallest indent in their foundation. It wasn't enough. He threw his memories at the wall – he found that was the easiest and most difficult way to break them apart. Memories of running with the Doctor. Of Rose Tyler and that damn smile with her tongue sticking out between her teeth. Sitting in a chip shop laughing with them. The Doctor, laughing. The Doctor had laughed.

And suddenly he was back. The knife had been pulled viciously out of his Time Lord and Sir had arched it back, ready to pounce again, when Jack slammed into existence. He was exhausted form the sheer effort of choking down the Metmorsus and his legs suddenly felt incredibly weak. He stumbled backwards, trying to find his footing to keep from falling, but in that brief moment of distraction Sir ambushed him again, throwing him back into his mental prison. But Jack clung onto reality with a vice-like grip, tearing and biting and kicking at everything 'Sir' on his way back. He found a foothold and slammed himself into it, feeling a stab in his mind as his 'body' jerked to a halt, straining painfully against the pull and push of Sir's possession. Jack roared from the effort. He was slipping.

But so was Sir. He could feel him. The uncertainty. The surprise. He tried to claw his way up the stonewall of Sir's consciousness, back to the brim, but after a few burning, painful inches collapsed down as a wave of powerful energy struck him. It took all his strength and will not to let it drag him back to his mind-cell, and the exertion it required was unbelievable. Jack had already 'died' three times, feeling the light of his existence sputter out from his fight with Sir, but it wasn't anything he wasn't used to. His consciousness could die just as easily as his body, but it could also just as easily resurrect. And he knew Sir hadn't been expecting _that_.

_An advantage._ Jack kept telling himself. This _thing_ wasn't unbeatable – he was in its' mind, the best place to tear it apart if only he could fine the right stones to chip at.

Jack slid further down the shaft, the gates to his prison open like the giant maw of a monster, snapping at his heels. Sir was shaking his head, clearing it of Jack's influence. Jack's fingers with destroyed and bloody from trying to cling on, but one more wave of energy was enough to knock him down. His elbows buckled and he fell straight into the cage, the metal bars slamming shut like vicious teeth.

He pulled himself up in time to see his own shaking hand on the "big screen". Sir was reaching into his pocket and pulling out the remote that controlled the mechanics inside the walls holding the Doctor and Martha – an adjustment Sir had made after discovering how easily Jack had picked the locks on the dear Doctor's collar. Sir jammed Jack's fingers onto the keys. 7. 9. 2. And Martha and the Doctor collapsed to the ground. The Doctor was entirely motionless, crumpling into a bloody, mutilated heap. Jack cursed and tried to stand, chucking memories back at the walls of his mind.

He fell back to the ground as something like an invisible giant fist slammed into the side of his face. He hit the floor, stunned, the wind completely knocked out of him, unable to move from the shock and force of the blow. He could hear Sir saying "Make sure he doesn't die. Or you'll be replacing him." in his own voice before the stairs and cellar door came into view and they disappeared off through them, Jack still attacking the inside of his own mind.

* * *

><p>Gwen stormed down the metal grated stairs at a canter, her booted feet echoing loudly off each step. The Hub was far from silent; machinery was beeping and whirling consistently, the typical strange noises were coming from the cell and storage wings, and Gwen was pretty sure that insane 'gun' the Doctor had been tinkering with was now whistling slightly. She paused at the bottom of the stairs, listening for voices, and shrugged when she heard none. Maybe they were still wrestling the Doctor to sleep.<p>

She tossed her bag and coat onto a nearby chair and gingerly stepped over a few pieces of broken pipe and wire. Ianto was probably freaking out about the mess, wherever he had gotten to. Gwen made a beeline for the kitchen, needing coffee. She felt like she'd been up for an entire week straight, first with Andy looking up records of the house, then memorizing those _stupid, _pointless Elton John lyrics for the Doctor, and most recently having to deal with Rhys's questions about why she'd barely been home the last week and a half.

She waited for the coffee to brew, dropped in two sugars, and wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic, letting it soak into her before attacking the caffeine. The whole time she still hadn't heard any voices or something that would indicate anyone else was there. Cradling the mug, she made her way towards the recovery and medical bay, still humming _Rocket Man _in spite of herself.

On the way she glanced into Jack's office. Papers were strewn everywhere – across the desk, all over the floor – but there was no sign of anyone, not even a coffee cup. Suddenly uneasy by the lack of noise and people, Gwen reached into her pocket, trying hard not to spill the coffee as she pulled out her mobile and dialed Jack's number. Two rings and then voicemail. Frowning, Gwen tried again. Straight to voicemail. She thought she was becoming paranoid due to the sudden bout of Goosebumps she was getting. Jack never ignores calls, even when he's doing….other things, which Gwen would rather not be apart of over the phone.

She decided to change tracks and began dialing Ianto instead. Maybe he knew what was going on. As the phone rang she continued on her way to the med rooms, still stepping over the Doctor's discarded science experiments. On the third ring he answered. "Hello?"

"Ianto, do you know where Jack is?"

Ianto sounded tired when he responded, almost like he was stifling a yawn. "I don't know. Last I saw him he was taking off in the car, but that was hours ago."

"Where was he going?"

Now a real yawn. "Said something about the house." He managed to get through the yawn. "Was going to go look for more clues or something."

Gwen pressed a finger to the ear not holding the phone, trying to drown out the annoying whistling of the gun-vacuum-thing on the table. "Back to the house?" She had reached the medical bay now and was standing a few feet away so as not to disturb whatever healing might be going on in there. But as she stopped she was suddenly aware of the intense silence coming out of the room. "Did he take Martha and the Doctor with him?" She asked uncertainly.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "No, when I saw him he was alone. Said he'd 'fucked everything to hell' though, so I don't know what that could mean."

Now Gwen could feel her heart beating at an irregularly fast beat. Why was she getting so nervous? Why did she suddenly have a horrible, horrible feeling?

Stepping forward cautiously, Gwen pushed on the med bay door, light enough for it to swing open slowly. And just as slowly the room began to come into view. The rumpled bed, the sheets scattered on the ground. The chair tipped over. Glass, everywhere. A broken cabinet. A thick metal pipe laying next to an abandoned book, blood dried on one end of it…

The coffee mug shattered as it hit the ground. Ianto must have heard it through the phone, for he said Gwen's name twice, the second time more forceful and worried. On the third time Gwen snapped out of her panicked trance, gasping back to reality. "Ianto, get here. NOW!"

* * *

><p>He was surrounded by a shimmering yellow glow, swimming through its light as it pressed against his warm skin. He hovered miles off any guessable ground, the density of the illumination holding him suspended in time and space, flowing around him like a warm, pleasant summer breeze. He closed his eyes and let his broken and damaged skin soak up the golden light. The pain had eased. His shoulder throbbed dully and his other wounds smarted from a distance. There was no longer blood; his skin was clean, the cuts exact and obvious. Distantly he wondered if nanogenes had been pumped into the room, but this felt different. The light felt decidedly familiar and comfortable, like a childhood blanket that never quite lost its distinct smell.<p>

And then there was the humming. The Doctor closed his eyes and let the sound envelop his mind and soul. He recognized it now. How could he not have before? It was as obvious as the ridges on the Doctor's starved ribcage. He listened to the humming, the singing, and willed everything else to vanish, to just end. It was the only constant in his life. It was all that mattered anyway. It had always been all that mattered in the universe.

But no, there was something else. Quite a few something elses. The Doctor both beamed and cringed as he heard her voice through the humming. "_I made my choice a long time ago and I'm not going to leave you._" Then there was another, one that now instilled fear in him to an extent, but also held the abiding love of the closest thing he still had to a brother. "_This lot – you see them out here surviving. And that's fantastic!_" Then he heard his own voice, strong, willful, full of confidence – "_TARDIS, Time Lord, yeah!_" – followed by one that would always surpass his own sass. "_Donna, human, no!_"

_Donna._ She was important. She mattered. And so did Martha, Jack, Wilf, even Mickey. And Rose. Especially Rose. They all mattered, and they were all still out there. _Martha_. Martha was there, too, and he wasn't going to leave her alone. Not like he had been.

The gentle stream of light he'd been floating in suddenly turned thick as maple syrup. He tried to push himself up, clawing at the thick substance, trying to resurface. The light was growing dim, sinister, the further up he fought. It was getting harder. He was getting more exhausted. Suddenly he felt the need to breathe again, but it was like trying to suck the oxygen out of pure water. Everything began to hurt. His shoulder _seared, begging _him to stop fighting, to just lie down and accept it.

But he was _the Doctor_. All the skies of all the worlds might just go dark if he ever, even for one moment, accepted it.

It took him a moment to realize the darkness surrounding him now was just the inside of his eyelids, which felt as thick and heavy as the syrup-y tar he'd just been swimming through. He pried them open slowly, but even the dull colors of the cellar were too bright and blurred together as the world spun uncontrollably. The Doctor rolled his head off Martha's lap, pushing away as hard as he could, as he began to retch to the side, the meager contents of his stomach coming back up to meet him. He groaned at the effort even _that_ required, but quickly shut down as he remembered the rules. Panic coursed through him. Had he groaned too loud? Did the sounds of him being sick count? Had he accidentally made any noises in his sleep?

The questions plagued him as he turned to see Martha. She was sitting propped up against the wall, completely motionless as far as he could see. What if she was already dead! Carefully, the Doctor moved a shaking hand – shaking both from anticipation and pain – and placed it on her neck, feeling for a pulse. Instead Martha jumped about a foot in the air at the sudden contact, looking at the Doctor wildly. The Doctor had to fight off a sigh of relief. She was alive, and Sir was no where to be seen for now.

"Doctor," Martha sighed, her voice wispy from sleep. "Oh, thank God." The Doctor opened his mouth to ask if she was okay, but closed it quickly. Martha put a hand to his cheek. "It's okay, he's not here, you can talk to me."

The Doctor just shook his head again. She didn't understand. Sir was _always_ there. He was _always _watching. As far as the Doctor was convinced, he had been even while in Torchwood.

Martha just frowned sympathetically, but seemed to accept it. "Come here, let me see that shoulder."

She scooted closer as it seemed the Doctor had wasted all his energy on throwing up. His shoulder was still throbbing like mad, but at least it wasn't bleeding actively at the moment. Only then did he notice Martha was shivering, no longer wearing her jacket. There it was, lying right where the Doctor had been, positively _drenched_ in his blood. The maroon now bright scarlet. Even more guilt pressed upon the Doctor's injured shoulder.

He sucked a breath in sharply through his nose as Martha began to examine the wound. "Sorry." She winced as she pressed her finger lightly to the swollen and inflamed area around the bullet and knife hole. "Got it to stop bleeding for now, and at least it was through-and-through, but it might get infected if we don't treat it properly…soon." She looked up at the Doctor, who was trying not to look at her, focusing on a stop on the floor a few feet away instead. "Does he ever bring first aid?" She asked hesitantly.

The Doctor shook his head. Martha sighed and glanced around the small cellar for the hundredth time, searching for anything that could help. She stood up quickly – throwing the Doctor off balance as she'd been the one thing keeping him sitting up – and stormed towards the stairs, hands moving awkwardly as they were still held in handcuffs. The Doctor struggled to stand as she began to mount the steps and rammed her shoulder into the cellar door. It barely even moved. She tried again, even more forcefully, but the dull _bong_ that accompanied the hit was the only result she got.

The Doctor was now using the chains he'd been held in earlier to pull himself up. His feet wanted to hold him, but his knees were uncertain about it. The choice was made for him as Martha whirled around and pinned him with a threatening glare. "You stay there! Don't try to stand." The Doctor crashed back to the ground gratefully, glad to have an excuse not to move. He was beginning to feel useless, something he was not used to.

Martha stomped back down the stairs, defeated, and crouched down in front of the paling Doctor. "Idiot." She muttered under her breath with a smile. To the Doctor's surprise, he smiled back. A small, sad, sorry excuse for a smile that lasted about half a second, but a smile nonetheless.

Looking down he saw that his bare chest was still covered in cuts as well, but thanks to his superior healing – even with it slowed down as it is – they were no longer so deep and painful, the shallower ones even forming into scars and scabs already. Martha was back to examining his shoulder, but he grabbed her hand gently instead and fixed her with a meaningful look, eyebrows raised slightly as he nodded towards her. Somehow she knew what he meant.

"Yeah, I'm fine. He didn't touch me." The Doctor tried to smile again and was a bit more successful than last time. This seemed to calm Martha down a bit because she stopped fussing over him and collapsed against the wall again, closing her eyes. The Doctor put his hand on her shoulder again, and when she opened her eyes at the contact he shook his head, eyes shinning warningly. _Don't sleep. _

Martha frowned, not having really understood the look, but was stopped from asking as there came a rattling from outside and a clang against the metal plating on the door. The Doctor tensed, his feeble heartbeat jumping to a ridiculous speeds, and seemed frozen to the spot. Martha stood up wearily, and almost protectively, over the Doctor, standing right between him and the stairway. _He _was coming back. Coming back too soon. The Doctor wasn't going to last the next encounter. Martha could just look at him and know. He wasn't going to give in, and he was going to pay for it with his life.

**TBC**

_A/N Just so you know, typing is really difficult with a broken hand…Leave a review for the broken one over here! _


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N _THOSE _were the most stressful two weeks of my life! I'm sorry this update is so late, but if it makes you feel any better I didn't sleep either, _that's_ how dedicated I am to you guys. Anyway, here's the new chapter. Depending on editing and my ever-changing plans, this is either the penultimate chapter or the penultimate penultimate chapter, so enjoy! _

Cold early morning air rushed through the now open door and flooded the cellar, hitting the Doctor and Martha like a tidal wave. Martha drew her arms around her torso tightly to ward off the cold, but the Doctor made no movement to protect himself. His right arm was slung across his chest, holding Martha's jacket to his wound, which had begun to bleed lazily again, but he didn't have the strength to do much more.

His face paled to an alarming shade and his breath hitched in his throat as a boot appeared at the top of the stairs. His hearts raced, bringing more blood to ooze out of his shoulder. It was too soon. He couldn't do it anymore. Sir had _never_ been this rough before – the Doctor had always been able to handle it with grace to some extent – but this…he was going to break soon. He could feel the scream rising in his throat at just the thought of what else Sir could do. He bit down on it, drawing more of the metallic flavor from his tongue.

Martha seemed to have noticed. She spun around at the sound of his ragged, hitching breath, face painted with worry. "Try not to move." She ordered as she knelt down in front of him. His eyes were closed now, trying to ward off the visions. Martha placed her hands on either side of his face. He flinched. "Doctor, look at me." The Doctor obeyed a little too quickly. "I'm going to get you out of this, I promise." She more or less growled with determination. "Just hang on, okay?" The Doctor tried to nod, but was now having difficultly lifting his head.

Martha stood and faced Sir, who had reached the base of the stairs now. He didn't seem to have acknowledged their presence yet, his blue eyes preoccupied with stuffing something back into the inside pocket of his large, bloodstained coat. He finally turned to face his two prisoners but he wasn't smiling cruelly as he had been before. His face was impassive, which scared Martha even more.

"He's still alive." Martha wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement, but couldn't bring herself to speak either way. "Step aside." He growled shortly when all she did was brace herself more firmly between the Doctor and Sir.

"No." She snarled back, trying to feign bravery she didn't have. She hoped her knees weren't shaking to give her away. "He's dying, can't you see? You're killing him!"

"Then he will regenerate." Sir smiled at the shocked look on Martha's face. "Oh, didn't think I knew about that little parlor trick of his, did you? Funny what you can learn when you have the right resources." He tapped a finger to his temple. "Jack's been giving me all sorts of interesting information."

Sweat had begun to form on Martha's brow from the effort it took not to break down, sink into the fetal position, cry from the fear. It made her skin feel even more freezing than it already was. "Did he tell you he doesn't have to regenerate if he doesn't want to?" She asked in barely a whisper, remembering a similar situation on the Valiant a million years ago. The very thought of the Doctor dying – actually _dying – _was harder for her to handle than staring straight at her possessed friend right now.

Sir smirked even wider. "Oh, but he will. Because he knows that once I no longer have him as a plaything I'll move on to someone else, and we both know the Doctor won't let anyone else suffer for him. His vow of silence right now proves that."

Martha glanced behind her quickly to see the Doctor sitting in the same position. He didn't even seem to be listening to them. His eyes were closed, chin resting on his bloodied chest, looking as if he were warding off the darkness with each shallow breath. How much longer was he going to last?

With a sigh she returned her gaze to the muddy leather of Jack's boots. "Please." Her voice was low and weak with pleading. "Two years…Haven't you had enough with him? Don't you w-want something…new?" There was a terrible silence as she swallowed heavily. "Take – take me instead?"

She nearly jumped as something touched her leg. Startled, she looked down to see the Doctor's hand gripping the cuff of her jeans, pulling at them weakly for her attention. His eyes were screwed shut but his head tilted slightly to either side, telling her no. Suddenly Martha was angry, and not at Sir, but at the Doctor. He was allowing himself to be tortured like this, he was prolonging it, forcing her to watch. "Shut up, Doctor." She hissed. "I'm not going to sit here and watch your self-sacrificing ass die. You know me better than that."

Behind her Sir was laughing. His arms were crossed over his chest as he observed them. "Oh, I _like _this. Who wants me to hurt them more? I don't think I've ever had prisoners actually _fighting _for my attention before. This is…_exciting._"

Something in that broke the straw. Martha felt the dam between her reservoirs of fear and anger break, mixing them together like unstable chemicals. The Doctor noticed it and begged her with his now open eyes to stop, but it was too late. The most dangerous combination in the world: Rage and Panic.

And against her better judgment, Martha spun around as fast as she could, drew her hand back, and aimed her fist for Jack's perfect nose.

* * *

><p>Gwen hurled herself around the corner, clutching the box under her arm as if her life depended on it. Ianto sat in the running car, drumming his fingers anxiously against the wheel. He threw open the passenger side door as Gwen approached and was already speeding away by the time she'd thrown herself into the seat. Gwen scrambled to find her seatbelt as Ianto tore through the streets of Cardiff, sirens flashing on the dashboard.<p>

"Got everything now?" Ianto snapped, sarcasm dripping off his thin Welsh accent. "Want to stop at the petrol station for some Jelly Babies while we're at it?"

"Shut up!" Gwen snapped back just as harshly. "If you hadn't taken a bloody decade to get to the hub in the first place –"

"ME? _I'm _not the one who had us turn around halfway down the motorway!"

"Did you really want to bring a BB Gun to a nuclear missile fight?" Ianto ignored her as he narrowly avoided smashing into an oncoming car. "That's what I thought." Gwen took his silence for surrender.

It wasn't. "They could be dead right now with the time we wasted!"

"Wasted!" Gwen shrieked before crashing down into her seat, crossing her arms like an insolent child. "Oh, just bloody drive! Doesn't this fucking thing go any faster?"

* * *

><p>Sir caught her wrist before it even made contact with his face and twisted sharply. Martha cried out as a <em>snap<em> echoed throughout the stone room. Jets of fire laced up her arm from where her wrist now bent awkwardly, throbbing like it's own pulsing heart. He tossed her aside like a rag doll, the pain in her hand causing her to forget about how to plant her feet properly. She collapsed to the ground behind him, leaving the Doctor suddenly exposed.

Sir now stood directly over him, the Doctor looking passed him at Martha, who was cradling her broken wrist. "Stand." Sir commanded with a sharp gesture with his hand to accompany it. Even in the fogginess of pain the Doctor recognized the motion and understood its urgency, but try as he might he simply wasn't able to pull himself up. The sheer effort it took just to bend one leg beneath his broken body was terrible enough, and the rest of his energy was employed in keeping himself from crying out.

The Metmorsus growled like an angry wolf. "You will stand and obey me, Doctor. Or must we go through the lessons once more?"

"He can't stand, you daft idiot!" Martha shouted, crawling to her feet herself. A low, threatening noise issued from the depths of Jack's throat as he turned on her, grabbing her around the neck with one hand and thrusting her up against the wall. If she could make a sound she would have shouted from surprise.

"He will stand." Sir hissed into her ear. "He will obey or he will watch me crush your windpipe as easily as I just snapped your wrist. I _will_ be in control!" She clawed at his fingers with her good hand, but they held fast, impenetrable, cutting off her air and voice. Grey spots were forming on the horizon of her vision.

It was like this all was happening in a dream where the Doctor was a casual observer to the cruelty of the subconscious world. He felt detached as Martha was swung around by the throat to crash into the wall beside him. He heard Sir's words as if they were echoing from far away, long ago, but he knew he needed to pay them heed. _Focus, Doctor! _The thought burst through his weary mind, bringing with it a bizarre shock of energy. He would do it – Sir would kill her – he had made that much clear. Whether the Doctor spoke or not, stood or not, Sir would kill her. He was playing _his _game, and not a fair one. The Doctor had to stop playing to the rules.

Martha struggled to bring in just a tiny breath of air. Sir's fingers were pressing into her jugular harshly and bruises were already beginning to form. She was slipping as Sir leaned in, his eyes barring into hers, full of hate and anger, and snarled. "He _will_ obey me. A dog will always obey his master in the end."

Martha's lungs seared. The air was not coming. She almost let her eyelids slide shut when she saw the movement out of the corner of her eye. She glared back at the Metmorsus, summoning what little oxygen was still in her lungs, and gasped. "Or…bite…him."

Sir just had time to register a look of confusion at her comment when something suddenly _slammed_ into his legs. He toppled over, off balance, dragging the Doctor down with him, who had tackled him around the knees. Martha slid down the wall, coughing and holding her neck as wondrous oxygen rushed into her lungs.

The Doctor and Sir clattered to the ground together. The Doctor cried out as his injured shoulder slammed into the floor, sending spikes of pain all through his arm, chest, and back. _Crap!_ He clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. The cry had escaped. The first noise he'd made in hours. The signature on Martha's death certificate.

Martha was dead anyway. They both were. His last selfish thought was that he be allowed to die first so he wouldn't have to witness his ultimate betrayal and failure.

Sir kicked the Doctor's pain-contorted body off his legs and rolled to his feet, laughing. "Brave! And what, exactly, were you planning on doing next, Doctor?" He accompanied the question with a swift kick to the Doctor's side. Giving up his previous pretense – he'd already shattered his vow of silence – the Doctor gave a pained groan as his thin body was tossed across the room from the force of the kick. He landed on his uninjured side, thank Rassilon, and curled pathetically around himself, adrenaline waning.

A hand tangled itself into his disheveled, blood-crusted hair and pulled him up. Desperately the Doctor tried to get his legs beneath him. Sir glared into his face, lips smiling but eyes angled with darkness. "Was it worth it?" He asked in a whisper. "She's going to die either way."

The Doctor coughed and gasped. "Leave….h…'lone. she….hasn't…d'n...n'thing."

"Neither have you!" Sir spat. "Yet here we are. The pain and death of the innocent is the sweetest."

"Not….innocent." The Doctor managed to grind out through the pain. He felt several hairs parting company with his scalp, feeling each one pulling out of his skin.

Sir released his hold and the Doctor crashed to the ground, head hitting the floor and causing him to black out for a fraction of a second. "Exactly." Sir muttered as he pulled Jack's revolver out of his pocket, cocked it, and aimed.

_BANG!_

The Doctor had just enough adrenaline left in his weak body to kick out, hard, striking Sir in the back of the knee just as he fired the gun. The bullet intended for Martha wedged itself into the ceiling as Sir collapsed to the ground once more. But this time it wasn't enough. Driven by desperation, the Doctor launched himself at Jack's body, straddling his chest, and grabbed a handful of dark hair in each hand, pulling his head up and slamming it back down. He heard a disturbing _squelch _as skin broke on contact and red blood began to trickle onto the floor. He vaguely registered that it was his friend's head he was trying to bash in, but his primal instincts had taken over. This creature was hurting him, hurting his friends, and he had to be stopped.

The Doctor growled as he slammed the head into the ground once more, no longer feeling the strain in his shoulder through the painkiller of adrenaline. He watched as Jack's body convulsed, attempting to rip itself out of his grasp. He watched as the electric, glowing blue of Sir's eyes began to dim. Suddenly his body stopped fighting and went limp, the eyes going startlingly dull. And suddenly they were Jack's. Pale blue staring back at him with a sudden life. "Doc…."

The Doctor scrambled away, suddenly terrified with himself. He stared into the pale blue eyes with a different kind of dread than he'd had facing Sir, a different strain of fear. What had he just been_ doing_? "J-Jack?"

His friend stared back at him for a moment before his back arched off the ground, a howl ripping from his throat. The Doctor watched as his eyes flickered from normal to electric and then back again. The realization hit the Doctor like a sledgehammer. Jack was in there still, _fighting_.

With renewed hope, the Doctor threw himself at Jack again, once more grabbing for his head. The body squirmed and flinched, but the Doctor held him fast, fingers and thumbs pressed strongly against Jack's temples. He had no idea if this would work, or how helpful it would be, but either way the Doctor closed his eyes and, for the first time in a long time, _connected. _

He could see it; Jack clawing at his mental cage, the fear-inspired glow of Sir's presence fading in and out with each of Jack's frantic blows. The glow was getting stronger. The Doctor knew he had to get out before he, too, became trapped in the mental prison if Sir gained back his control. He could only imagine the horror that would ensue if Sir had that kind of power over a Time Lord's mind. But Jack was there, battling it out, giving the Doctor one chance to help his friend. Help himself, even.

He barely had any energy left, but what he did he thrust into the cage, lending to Jack, giving him the mental strength to break down the bars of his cell.

The Doctor never saw if he succeeded. The connection snapped as the Doctor surrendered all his mental and physical strength. He was pushed out by the sheer force of Sir and Jack battling inside their mind. He distantly heard Martha shout his name as he fell forward, tumbling off Jack's chest, to lay motionless on the floor, completely spent.

"Doctor!" Martha shouted as she finally managed to regain her breath and stand. She hobbled over to him and struggled to grasp his wrist with her left hand, feeling for a pulse. It was there, even weaker than before, but there.

Jack had rolled onto his side, panting. Every muscle in his body twitched as he groaned and his eyes lit up again with electricity. Martha watched, horrified, as his friend fought for his mind, helpless to do anything else. She held the limp Doctor as Jack scrambled to his feet, noticing that his moments of clarity were getting shorter and shorter with each passing second. He turned on them, eyes as brilliantly, terrifying blue as ever, and Martha shrunk backwards, searching for a wall to brace herself on, dragging the Doctor with her. She had never seen Sir, or even Jack, look so angry, not longer any hint of Sir's dark smile or twisted desires on his face. He drew the gun again, checking it still had ammunition, mumbling. "More trouble than you're worth."

Martha wanted to close her eyes, expecting to hear the bang and feel the agonizing burn of the bullet at any moment. She held the helpless Doctor closer, glad he was unconscious and wouldn't have to witness her death. He would only blame himself. He would always blame himself.

But her fear kept her eyes wide and open, open enough to see the barrel of the revolver move away from her and rest between Jack's perfect teeth. "No!" She shouted, not really understanding why. "JACK!"

BOOM!

The gun never went off. Jack's body was thrown forward as an explosion went off behind him. Martha turned away as best she could but still felt the sting of something sharp slapping across her exposed skin. Her ears were ringing deafeningly. She could taste blood and dust on her lips.

Looking around, Martha was blinded by a wall of dust, ash, and smoke. She began to cough, all too familiar with the feeling of not having any oxygen to spare, and glared through the debris for the source of the disturbance.

Two figures stood in the gapping hole where the cellar door had been, half the stairs now missing. Against the dust and the light of dawn breaking outside they were mere silhouettes, but Martha knew who they were. "Gwen! Ianto!" She could have laughed, and if it hadn't been for the movement coming from her side where Jack's body had fallen, reminding her of their predicament, she probably would have.

Gwen jumped down the small drop to the stairs that were still intact, holding her weapon before her cautiously. Ianto scrambled down as well, firearm sweeping the room sweeping the room for a threat. But while his was a standard Glock 17 pistol, Gwen's was far more intricate and bizarre, resembling a vacuum with an enlarged casing in the center for the sac.

The Doctor's gun!

Gwen's eyes fall on Martha, pressed up against the wall, the Doctor lying lifeless in her lap, and all the blood everywhere. "What the hell happened?" She shouted. Martha opened her mouth to respond when there was a great growl and surge of movement as Jack tossed himself to his feet, brushing off bits of dust and rubble. He spun around and fixed the newcomers with a bright glowing blue glare. Alright, not-Jack.

Gwen and Ianto raised their guns instinctively, fear freezing them to the spot. "My God." Ianto gasped as he stumbled backwards. He had never seen anything like it before. Gwen felt it, too, for the second time, but forced the terror down, trying to think rationally. "Jack?" Her voice betrayed her as it came out in a warbly whisper.

"Stop. _CALLING ME THAT!" _Sir shouted through his teeth, advancing on them, completely losing it. But as they watched his steps faltered. His eyes flashed back to normal with a frustrated whine, and when he looked back up he was Jack again, just for a moment.

Gwen was too shocked to react, but Jack had seen the gun. With another growl of effort he forced Sir down, just for a little longer. "Do it!" He growled through the never-ending battle, fixing Gwen with meaningful glare. When Gwen hesitated he roared, "THAT'S AN ORDER!"

And Gwen fired the untested, unpredictable, unknown gun at her boss.


	17. Chapter 17

The room cackled with invisible energy. It woke the Doctor from his stupor, like a shock ripping through his body. He gasped back to life, jerking in Martha's lap, her hands wrapping around him even tighter instinctively. He suppressed a groan from the painful pressure.

He could see the energy blasting from his makeshift gun. Where the hell did it come from? What…what had happened? Everything moved in half motion as his mind slowed down time, trying to get a grip of what was going on. His eyes followed the flow of the blast from the barrel of the bizarre gun over the short distance to Jack's ridged body, his arms thrown out to the side like a crucifix. The blast was barely visible – none of the humans would be able to see it – but the Doctor saw it clearly, striking Jack in the chest like a bolt of horizontal lightening.

Jack's body was arched forward as if the energy was pulling at him and freezing him at the same time. His mouth was open in a silent cry; whether as resistance from Sir or pain from Jack, no one would be able to tell.

Time returned to normalcy and the rays from the gun vanished. The Doctor didn't realize it had gone, but suddenly there was noise; loud, blowing noise like a tempest had stirred within the small confines of the cellar. It was deafening. Ianto was holding onto Gwen's shoulders as she held the gun at arms length. "How do I know when to let go?" Gwen shouted over the noise to no one in particular. No one seemed to notice that the Doctor was awake except for Martha, still holding him too close. He wanted to squirm away from the contact.

"S-stop." The Doctor moaned. No one was able to hear him over the noise, but he could barely speak as it was, let alone raise his voice. "No…" He shifted in Martha's grasp, who let him go in surprise. "Stop n-now!" What he thought should have been a shout came out as a desperate gasp, but Martha heard and came to his aid.

"Stop! Gwen, let go!"

Her voice was able to make it over the supernatural bellows and, seeing the Doctor staring at her urgently, Gwen immediately released the hold on Jack, lowering the gun. Jack's body crumpled to the ground like a scarecrow cut from its post, lifeless. The noise vanished, leaving them all in a confused state of silence after the chaos of what had just happened.

The Doctor pulled away from his companion and crawled, painfully, limping from the only three usable limps he had, towards the heap that was Captain Jack Harkness. He stopped a few feet away as if reaching an invisible line. He stared at the body with a mixture of fear and concern.

A minute passed. Gwen and Ianto were slowly pulled out of their shocked trances and exchanged worried looks, but never words. Martha had moved so she was sitting next to and slightly behind the Doctor. The companion's position. Watching Jack with the same intensity and expectations as the others.

Another silent, tense minute went by before Gwen spoke, her voice cracking slightly. "Why…Why isn't he…" She swallowed thickly, unable to finish the question.

"Jack?" Ianto took a step forward towards his boss, his lover.

"Don't touch him!" The Doctor snapped viciously. Everyone was stunned by the sudden venom and strength in his voice. Ianto backed off immediately.

Slowly, carefully, Martha placed her hand on the Doctor's shoulder as comfortingly as she could. He flinched at the contact but didn't move away. She scooted closer, trying to catch his eye, but he couldn't stop looking at the unmoving body of his friend. "Doctor? It's alright now. We need to check on him."

And suddenly there were tears in his eyes. His body shook beneath her hand with a sob. "I'm just trying to protect him. Protect everyone. That's all I ever wanted to do. Why is that so damn hard?" Martha pulled him towards her as he convulsed, twitching with each sob. She pulled him to her chest, and, holding him there like she had when he'd first woken up in Torchwood such a long, long time ago, he began to cry freely into her shoulder. She felt tears sliding down her own cheeks as she held him. Tears for the Doctor, for Jack. For everything they'd gone through and for getting out of it alive. Or at least most of them alive.

Minutes more passed and still the 'immortal' Jack didn't stir. Gwen and Ianto were standing awkwardly, both wanting to do something but unsure what was okay to do. They watched Martha and the Doctor vanish into their own little world for comfort and didn't disturb them until the Doctor finally pulled himself away from Martha's shoulder, eyes red with tears. He wiped them away with the back of his hand and turned to face Gwen blearily.

"Let me … Let me see the gun." His voice was thick with emotion. Gwen glanced at Martha for permission, not sure if giving as unstable Time Lord a gun was the best idea at the moment, but with Martha's nod she handed it over.

The Doctor took it gingerly, as if every inch of the gun was contaminated with a deadly disease and he was trying to touch as little of it as possible. He examined the bulging midsection of the device, reading a few bleeping lights only he understood. Slowly a small smile appeared. A small, sad smile.

"It's in there." He stated blankly.

"So…" Martha eyed it suspiciously. "It's not in Jack anymore?" The Doctor shook his head solemnly.

Gwen shifted anxiously to her other foot. "Then…I don't understand. Is Jack…dead? Why isn't he coming back?"

"The gun wasn't ready." Said the Doctor quietly into his knees. Martha still had one arm around him, careful not to touch near the bullet wound. "The suction of the blast is too strong; its field wasn't narrowed down to focus on any one particular species' essence, so it took all of it. The Metmorsus and the human. Killed him just like any gun." The Doctor was disgusted with himself. He had created that thing. He had not been quick enough to fix it. It might not have been Martha's, but in one way or another, he had signed a friends death papers anyway.

"But he'll come back, right?" Ianto asked hesitantly, fearing the answer. "I mean, he's been through worse than this. He always comes back." Now he's simply pleading as he sees the Doctor's sad eyes meet his.

"I'm sorry." The Doctor whispered sincerely. "I am so sorry, but I just don't know. The gun works like an existential vacuum, searching for and absorbing anything that isn't native to the host. But because its limits weren't set, it took it all. Everything that made up Sir and…and everything that made up….J-Jack…" He paused and looked sadly at the fallen Time Agent. He could only find one tiny glimmer of a silver lining. More like a dark grey lining on an even darker cloud. "It's possible – because Jack wasn't born with immortality, it was set on him by an outside force – that it doesn't register as part of Jack's 'essence'. But…It _is _a fix point. It is part of him. I – I just don't know if it would have been taken or left behind."

Gwen jumped on the possible hope. "If it was left behind then, even with everything gone, he'll come back just the same. His mind, his soul, whatever it is you're talking about that was taken, it would all be resurrected, right? I've seen him come back from some pretty impossible deaths good as new!"

She and Ianto shared hopeful looks and the Doctor just couldn't bring himself to explain how slim those chances were, to crush them even more. He just offered them a small smile and a nod. "It's possible. But it could take a long time, if ever."

"We have to get him back to Torchwood. All of you." Gwen stooped down to grab Jack by one of the arms. Ianto did the same on the other side. Together they lifted him up. Jack's head lolled forward limply.

"How are we going to get out, though?" Martha spoke for the first time in a while. From the quizzical looks Gwen and Ianto shot her she guessed they'd forgotten with everything that had happened. "What, did you use a stick of dynamite on the door?"

Now the two Torchwood agents looked up to see the damage they'd done. The cellar door was blown to smithereens, leaving a gaping hole in the place where it had been. The blast had taken the top six steps off the stairs. The gap between the last step and the exit was a good four or five feet tall. There was no way an injured Doctor and a 'dead' Jack could manage their way through that.

"Here." Ianto began to lower Jack to the ground carefully. He bounded up the remaining stairs, bits of rubble from the blast tripping him up, and stood with the earth at shoulder-height. "Martha, Gwen, you bring up Jack. I'll climb out and you hand him to me. I'll try pulling from up there."

"Can you make that?"

Ianto studied the ledge some more. "Yeah, it's just like getting out of a swimming pool. I've been lifting more weights lately…. Anyway." He placed his hands on the ledge and jumped as high as he could in one spot. When he reached the peak he locked his arms in place, holding himself suspended with his legs swinging in the charred gap left behind. He began to push, groaning from the effort, and after a tense moment of hanging managed to swing on leg up, his toe just barely catching on the edge of the burnt grass outside. He dropped down to his elbows and used the new arrangement to reposition his leg so it was more secure on the ledge before pushing off into a roll, dragging his remaining leg and the rest of his body over.

Martha raised her eyebrows, impressed. "I'm definitely doing more weights from now on…"

"Ianto, see if that extension cable is still in the back of the SUV. You can loop it around the tree branch and we can tie it around Jack's chest for leverage." Gwen indicated to the thick lower branches of a pine tree that loomed conveniently close to their hole in the ground.

Ianto vanished to go search for the cable. "Will an extension cable be able to support them?" Martha asked nervously.

Gwen shrugged and bit her lower lip, showing off the gap between her front teeth. "The Doctor, no problem. He's skin and bones. But Jack…We'll have to see. But it's worth trying." Martha nodded and knelt down in front of the Doctor, who was still staring blankly at his knees and didn't acknowledge her presence. She ran a hand through his hair gently, trying to get him to look up.

"Ready to get out of here, Doctor?"

Ianto reappeared at the mouth of the cellar holding up a length of brown cabling. Winding it up, he tossed it over a branch from the tree, held onto one end, and let the opposite fall into Gwen's waiting hands at the top of the stairs. She raced it down, shooting "Help me with him" Over her shoulder at Martha. Martha squeezed the Doctor's good shoulder in a promise to be back and went to Gwen's aid. Together they managed to prop Jack against the wall and tie the cable securely around his torso beneath his arms. They dragged him up the stairs, Gwen apologizing under her breath as his feet smacked against a few steps. "Okay, Ianto, we're ready!"

Ianto began to pull down on the cable with all his might while the girls lifted Jack's dead weight as best they could from the blown-up stairs. Jack dangled unhelpfully as Ianto pulled him over the lip of the cellar and Martha pushed him onto the ledge.

"Okay, untie him and toss it back." Gwen instructed. As Ianto complied Martha turned and found, to her surprise, that the Doctor had pushed himself to his feet and was swaying dangerously. He took a step forward, determined to not be helpless, and stumbled.

Martha jumped down the stairs and caught him under the arms. He groaned as it put unwanted pressure on his injured shoulder. "Careful. Careful." Martha put his arm around her neck and helped him limp up the stairs. It was slow going, but eventually they reached the top. Gwen tied the cord around him as tightly as she dared with all the cuts and gashes criss-crossing his chest. "This might hurt a bit, Doctor."

"I can h-handle it." He didn't sound convincing.

Ianto began to pull at Gwen's cue. The Doctor sucked a breath in through his teeth, grimacing, as he was jerked upwards. This distance wasn't really that far. The Doctor grabbed the ledge with his good arm as he neared it, trying to help pull himself up.

Ianto suddenly stopped pulling. "Shit…"

_SNAP! _

The cable broke where it was rubbing against the rough bark of the tree. The Doctor, being held up mostly by the cord, began to fall backwards, but his arm was already braced on the ledge. He caught on it, managing to keep himself up, but cried out as the movement sent a pang of searing pain through his abused body.

"Doctor!"

"Is…okay…." He moaned as he tried to pull himself up instead. One arm wasn't enough. He pulled his left arm, the one with the hole in the shoulder, up and forced it to take on weight. It was absolute agony. Every second seemed to drag on for eternity. Ianto scrambled to his side and grabbed hold of the bit of cord still tied around him and began to pull. Slowly, painfully, the Doctor broke over the ledge, Ianto pulling him to safety away from the hole. All that movement was still taking a toll on the Doctor's strained body. He flopped to the ground and decided it was in his best interest to never, ever move again.

Ianto returned to the cellar after making sure the Doctor was as okay as he could be and began helping the girls out. Gwen came up first and, in turn, helped her partner pull Martha free, unsuccessfully trying to avoid hurting Martha's broken wrist. "Thanks." Martha panted as she rolled out, feeling a rush of excitement surge through her just knowing they were out. They were free.

The Doctor, however, sees none of this. From the moment the cable snapped he'd felt it again. That beautiful, warm, comforting, _perfect _glow. At first he'd thought it was regenerative energy – that this body had finally given up its struggle to stay alive – but now he felt it stronger and purer than ever.

As Ianto was hugged by both Gwen and Martha in turn, the Doctor rolled onto his side and fought, despite his decision from moments before, to get on his knees. It was much harder than it should have been.

"Right, Ianto, get Jack's other side. Martha, you help the Doctor. The car's just over there." Gwen was instructing, having taken charge of the entire situation already. Martha helped the two Torchwood agents heaved Jack up, not noticing the Doctor pull himself unsteadily to his feet until Gwen and Ianto began to drag their boss towards the big SUV. "Doctor! God, you're rubbish at the whole 'don't move' thing!"

She tried to grab for him but he had already began to move. He limped forward, right arm hanging awkwardly dead at his side, feet tilling up grass as they barely managed to lift up. He was walking back across the yard, to the spot where the front porch of the house-mirage would be, and stopped. Martha darted up behind him. "What is it?" She asked anxiously.

The Doctor takes a moment to respond as a smile creeps onto his face. "She's here. This whole time…she was right here."

Martha stared at him, concerned. Had he bumped his head too hard sometime? Had the strain of their escape finally taken hold? But when she glanced back, worriedly, at where the Doctor was gazing in awe, she felt her mouth drop.

The house wasn't there. For some reason the perception filter had vanished and she could see the plot of land for what it really was. A few chard remains of a house. Some stonework that had made up the foundation. And a box. An impossible box of the bluest blue.

The TARDIS doors stood were only inches away from the Doctor's suddenly lit-up face. The Doctor shoved the doors and they opened automatically, no key needed as the living machine embraced her Time Lord with a burst of golden light, filling him with all her warmth and love, showing her how much he had been missed. He stepped into the box with one big, ceremonial step, tears of happiness falling down his already tear-stained cheeks.

And in that moment it was as if none of this had ever happened. The bullet wound, the silence, the betrayal, the two years of torture and imprisonment. Once again he was just a boy with his box and the infinity of space to explore together.

The blue doors closed silently and finally behind him.

**TBC…one more time. **

_A/N What is this? Could it possibly be…the last chapter? Well, the last full chapter at least. There's a short(ish) epilogue on its way soon, so look out for that in the next few days. I hope you all enjoyed the 'great escape'! Leave a review and talk to me! _


	18. Chapter 18

_A/N Did I say 'short' epilogue?...Opps! Well, here it is, the last chapter. I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who stuck with me all the way through, and especially to those beautiful reviewers who helped me get through so much writers-block and plot-sinkholes with their kind words. This story is dedicated to you! _

_As far as a sequel goes (a few of you have already mentioned it to me) I currently have no plans to write one, as I have another story I'd like to get up soon. But a sequel will never totally be off the table, especially if enough people express interest in one. _

Epilogue:

"_What you fear most is fear itself." –Remus J Lupin _

With a great gasp for air Jack launched himself upright, eyes bulging as he was pulled back to life. He sat there for a long while, breathing hard, trying to get his breath back as if he hadn't had any air in his lungs in a lifetime. Maybe he hadn't. It felt like it'd been – not only a lifetime – but centuries since he'd been alive last. So long he'd almost been convinced this was it…he was finally going to die.

His throat was parched and dry. He tried to swallow, but his throat convulsed from the effort, unable to move the glob of saliva all the way down what felt like a tube of sandpaper. Jack coughed violently, his entire body working to clear his throat. When it was finally done he was suddenly sporting a brilliant headache. He flopped roughly back against the pillows, cringing.

It was then, his headache yelling at him still, that he turned his head and opened his eyes to see the Doctor staring at him with surprised amusement, his eyebrows raised. "Good morning." He said with the hint of a laugh. Just a hint.

"D-Doc?" Jack began to cough again instantly as the word scrapped its letters against his sore throat. The Doctor untangled himself from the chair he'd been sitting in, long legs drawn to his chest, chin resting on his knees, and walked over to the bedside table. Jack saw how he winced slightly as he stood, how his right leg dragged a little as he walked. How his left arm was resting in a sling, his shirt sleeve thick with hidden bandages. Guilt threatened to suffocate him. "Where r'we?"

The Doctor didn't look up as he pulled out a small paper cup and a pitcher of water, handling it carefully with only one hand. "You don't recognize it?"

After an embarrassingly long moment of looking around Jack finally realized he was sitting in the Hub medical bay on a warm bed. A bed that had become known in the weeks prior as the Doctor's bed. He blinked. The scene in the cellar flashed before his eyes. He – he'd been shot. He remembered that much. How'd he get back to the hub? How long had he been 'dead'? But for some reason the first thing to come to his lips was, "Well, congrats on finally getting me into your bed." He laughed hoarsely. The Doctor didn't.

The small paper cup was handed to him carefully and he grabbed at it, realizing just how thirsty he was. He didn't notice the way the Doctor's hand jumped back at the sudden movement as he tossed back the water like the pro-drinker he was, relishing in the way the cool liquid soothed his sore throat. "Careful." The Doctor warned. "Don't drink too fast." This time Jack did notice something wrong. The flatness in the Doctor's voice.

Jack handed the cup back to him and coughed once to get more comfortable before looking up, trying to catch the Doctor's elusive eyes. Busy pouring another cupful, the Doctor wasn't looking up.

"How – " Cough. "How long have I been out?"

The Doctor set the pitcher down quietly and handed the second cup to Jack. "Slowly now." He reminded the time agent as it was taken from it. Jack took a careful, calculated sip as the Doctor shrugged and bopped his lips together as he thought. "Oh, about…two and a half weeks?"

The water came shooting out of Jack's mouth. The Doctor took a hurried step backwards, avoiding the spray. "What!" Jack gasped. "Two…two and a half _weeks?_" The Doctor nodded, his voice, for once, hiding willingly. Jack blanched. "I-I don't understand. It shouldn't have taken that long…"

"It's a miracle you came back at all, Jack." The Doctor sounded neither happy nor sad as he said it. He just…was. Jack settled back into the pillows, breathing out his disbelief.

"Two and a half weeks…" He mumbled again then gave a short laugh. "I'm surprised you haven't taken off by now. You found the TARDIS, right?"

"Yeah, we found her. And, no offense, Jack, but if I had it my way we _would _be gone." His face darkened as he remembered the argument he'd had with Martha just a week before.

_The TARDIS hummed to him, a comforting old tune from Gallifrey that had lost all meaning to the Universe, except for to the Doctor. But this time it had no effect. The Doctor would not be soothed as he flung himself around the center consol, striking buttons and turning knobs desperately, supporting his still healing body on the circular control panel. He growled with frustration as the ship refused to budge. In his anger he kicked out at his beloved ship, striking the control panel hard and breaking a toe. He barely noticed the pain. Tears glistened in his eyes as he slouched over the consol, exhausted. _

_The door opened with its usual _creak_, but he didn't look up as Martha walked up the familiar grated ramp to stand on the other side of the round consol, arms crossed. "You finished?" She asked roughly. The Doctor didn't reply. "Or are you going to keep trying to run away on us?" _

_The Doctor pounded his fist more viciously than necessary into a button and pulled harshly on a lever. Nothing happened. "Doctor, I told you – "_

"_Don't!" The Doctor snapped. "Don't pretend you know what's best for me, Martha Jones. You know nothing!" _

"_I know your attitude is completely unnecessary, I know that." She shot back. "I know your shoulder's still killing you and that you're still not sleeping. And I know you're just frustrated because she won't take off for you. Give me a little credit at least."_

_The Doctor turned from her and collapsed into the Captain's chair, glaring at the wall of his ship, sending her waves of telepathic anger intermixed with pleading. She only sent back her mental song, as if trying to hush a troublesome child. "Why can't I get her to go?" His voice had dropped to a whisper, dramatically different then how he'd shouted before. "Why can't I do it anymore?" _

_Martha took a step forward as her posture softened. "Did it ever cross your mind that maybe she's staying here on _purpose_? Maybe she knows you need to be here." _

_The Doctor snorted. "I'm fine! I'm as patched-up as you'll ever get me. I don't need to be here anymore. I'll heal fine on my own. I need to deal with some things." _

_Martha sighed at his stubbornness. "Maybe – and here's a crazy thought – but just maybe, you don't need to be here for you." There was a pause as the Doctor finally met her eyes. "Maybe others here need you." And suddenly he could see her vulnerability, the same helplessness she had always attempted – often successfully – to hide. The Doctor stood up silently then and crossed the control room to her, throwing his one good arm around her neck and shoulders. _

"_Martha, I'm so sorry." He whispered into her hair as she returned the embrace, clinging to him like a lifeline. "You're right. Of course you're right." _

Jack downed the rest of the water, this time really wishing it was a shot. As the Doctor reached for it again Jack took his hand, giving it a small squeeze. "Doctor, I am so –"

The Doctor pulled his hand away slowly, cutting off Jack's apology. He pulled it close to his chest as if it had been hurt and refused to look up. An awkward moment fell between them as the Doctor returned to the bedside table, moving the pitcher over so Jack could reach it from the bed himself. Finally he cleared his throat.

"Martha told me to sit in here with you, but now that you've come around she'll probably want to check on you."

"I'm fine –"

"I'll go get her –"

"Doctor."

The Doctor stopped walking towards the door and turned slightly, just enough to catch Jack's confused, pleading eyes. He sighed sadly and collapsed back into the chair he'd been occupying before.

"Yeah…" He put his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair. "Maybe not all of us as completely healed as we'd hoped. _But_ that's the good thing about time; it gives us a chance to repair our broken bits with more fortified ones. It might just take longer than you might hope."

"Doctor, I –"

"Don't." The Doctor shook his head. "Just don't, Jack. I know. I know it wasn't _you_ but…I look at your face and I still see him. And it's going to take a while, 'cause I'm not going to forget this all too soon. And forgetting the pain is half of what tricks us into giving forgiveness. Someday soon I'll be that naïve and sympathetic again," He looked up and caught Jack dead in the eye. Jack could see it all, swirling around in the Doctor's brown orbs. The pain, the sadness, the fear. The hope. The determination. The desire to forgive and the trepidation to not. And one was winning the battle. "I promise."

The Doctor stood up and headed for the door again, leaving a stunned and hurt Jack behind. He got only a few steps before he stopped and, not turning around, added, "I'll be around Jack. Just…let's both have some time, okay?"

Jack nodded, even though he knew the Doctor couldn't see him. The Time Lord gave one more sigh, a nod, and then swept from the room.

Martha was pacing around the small kitchen as the Doctor emerged, talking into her cell phone. She spotted the Doctor and nodded for him to come over. Into the phone she said, "Yes, of course, don't worry 'bout it – Listen, I've got to go. I'll call you later tonight. – Love you, too. – Bye."

She hung up the phone and quirked an eyebrow as the Doctor hopped up to sit on one of the countertops, grabbing one of the three dozen or so bananas sitting in a bowl. One of his terms for staying. He went to peel it but then stopped and just stared at the bizarre yellow fruit. Martha gave a short laugh. "Okay, what's it now?"

The Doctor looked up at her, his deep brown eyes not giving anything away. "Jack's awake."

The smile flickered out for a second on Martha's lips. "Oh… how is he?"

The Doctor shrugged and pulled back the shinny skin of the banana carefully, like an artist making sure his masterpiece wasn't destroyed. "He seems fine. Same old Captain Jack, I suppose."

"You ran away as soon as you could, didn't you?" Martha sighed. The Doctor took a large, telling bite from the banana. "Did you at least _say _something to him?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "No, actually, I gave him one disgusted look and bolted from the room. Of course I talked to him! Does this gob ever stop?" He bit down on his tongue the moment he said it, the uncomfortably fresh memory washing over both of them. His teeth landed directly on the thick, swollen scar now lying across his tongue as a reminder. He would have that scar for the rest of this regeneration.

Martha quickly cleared her throat, moving the conversation on. "What did you say to him?" The Doctor took a moment to respond as he nibbled on the banana.

"I made him a promise." He said simply. Martha raised an eyebrow but accepted it, not pressing on.

"So now what?" She asked. "You're a free man finally." The Doctor laughed quietly. A free man. It'd been way too long since he'd been that. Those three words were too sweet to be repeated out loud, so he said them, over and over again, in his mind. _Free. Free. Free. _

"Not free yet." He admitted with a sigh. "Still have one more job I've got to do." Martha just nodded, knowing what he was talking about. That vacuum sac of blue hatred was still acting like an annoying splinter from where it sat, detached from the gun – which had been promptly destroyed – in a reinforced metal drawer down stairs. Sometimes Martha would find the Doctor sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the drawer, just staring at it from a safe distance away. She never questioned him about it, didn't even mention she'd seen him down there. But it had been a great source of stress to all the inhabitants of the Hub since bringing it back two and a half weeks ago. None of them had known what to do about it.

"What are you going to do with it?" They had never said the name 'Sir' again after all that. A silent, mutual agreement between all of them.

The Doctor finished up the banana and tossed the peel in the bin across the kitchen with a perfect shot. "Take it back to where it's from, I suppose. I can't think of a worse punishment than living in that kind of world."

"And after that?"

"I dunno." He admitted with a shrug. "A little R&R would be nice for a bit. Maybe I'll visit Space Florida. Haven't been to those automatic sand beaches in a long time. Or maybe stop by Mars, it's been a while since I last saw that desolate red landscape. Then, I guess, back to the same old life. Last of the Time Lords…"

"You want some company?" Martha asked sincerely. She would still go with him to the edges of the galaxy if he needed her to. All he had to do was ask.

But instead he just laughed, a confident smile finally back on his lips. "Oh, I think Mickey would absolutely _kill _me if I took another one of his girls away in the TARDIS. Which would be tremendously ambitious of him."

Martha found herself laughed at the idea, too. "Alright, I guess he does deserve a break from all the woman-stealing."

The Doctor hit her playfully in the shoulder. "Oi! It was only once! Not my fault he was a bumbling idiot in the beginning! But new-Mickey I like. That alternate universe did wonders for his badassery."

"Did you really just say 'badassery'?" The Doctor cringed with guilt at the accusation. "He finished up his work in New York and is flying in tonight, by the way. Will you still be here?" The way the Doctor glanced down quickly, no longer laughing, was enough of an answer. "Yeah, didn't think so. That's alright, though, we'll see you again. The universe is going to be in jeopardy again some time soon, I'm sure it's due."

"Humans." The Doctor mused, eyeing Martha with a proud-father look in his eye. "I'll never be done saving you, will I?"

"We'll return the favor one day."

"I think you already have…"

When Jack opened his eyes again after the short nap he'd fallen into, it was to the whirling of the TARDIS engines, finally disappearing back into the time vortex. He gave a heavy sigh, still reeling in the guilt of what he had done. How soon would the Doctor forgive him? How soon would he be able to forgive himself?

The answer came not long afterwards when the Hub found itself one smartly-dressed Welshman short.

The Doctor carefully slid through the crowded doorway into the neon-lit pub. A Slitheen casually cut him off on its way across the floor. A pair of Hath sat at a tall table, bubbling to each other in conversation as a waitress with spiky pink hair and earringed antennas set their drinks down. The Doctor found a spot along the bar beside a large Jadoon. "_Fro mo toe._" The Doctor said in civil greeting. The Jadoon nodded as politely as their kind ever will – which isn't very politely at all – as the Doctor grabbed a napkin sitting on the bar. "_Boe cho doe mo lo_?" _Do you have a pen_?

The Jadoon grunted as he reached into one of his various leather pockets and pulled out a black pen. "_Ma-ho._" The Doctor thanked him as he took the pen and scribbled a message quickly onto the napkin. When he finished he signaled over the bartender with a quick flick of his finger.

"What can I do ya for?" The young man asked as he wiped a sticky wet spot off the bar in front of him.

"Nothing, thanks, but can you hand this to the guy in the big blue coat over there?" The Doctor motioned to the opposite side of the bar, where Captain Jack Harkness sat with his head bowed, eyes downcast as he swirled his clear drink – something far stronger than a normal human should be taking – around its glass.

The bartender followed his gaze before glancing back at the Doctor, trying to hide an amused smile. "Okay, mate."

The Doctor took a few steps back from the bar as the bartender crossed the expanse to Jack. The Time Lord watched as the napkin was set down and the bartender jerked his head in the Doctor's direction. Jack looked up, surprised abolishing the glazed-over look in his eyes. The Doctor nodded slightly but pointedly at the napkin when Jack froze. The Time Agent carefully unfolded it, scanned it over, and looked up again with even more question in his eyes until the Doctor nodded once more to the spot on Jack's left. One glance showed Jack a young star sailor settling into the barstool. Alonso, apparently.

The Doctor gave a two-fingered salute in Jack's direction, and Jack knew that, with that one, fluid motion, the promise had been fulfilled. In that small, so Doctor-ish movement, Jack knew what the Doctor was saying. Maybe now it was time to forgive himself, too.

So he cast one more long salute back at the Doctor as that beautiful man in the long beige coat and pinstriped suit turned slowly away, leaving the pub and Jack to his new friend. The feeling was – exhilarating, experiencing the pain of his fear washing away.

But it never washed away completely.

Years and years and years later, the same man with a different face in a different suit walked down the dizzying hallway of a 1950s style hotel and came upon a door. It read '11' in big, white numbers on a plaque. With great trepidation, a hand gripped the gold doorknob and slowly, carefully, agonizingly turned it. He flicked the door open quickly and was met by a dazzling, electrified blue light. Slanted eyes expelled it, illuminating a long, historical blue coat and the shadow of a familiar woman lying, motionless, at its feet.

The man in the new face suppressed a shudder as he attempted to smile. His face gave a little jerk as he shrugged. "Of course…who else?" The shadow did not respond. He closed the door quietly behind him, dropping the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the handle, and turned away – walking, once again, from the fear, each step back down the hall taking him further and further away.

**The End**


End file.
